Casual staff to quit Morcha

RAJEEV RAVIDAS, TT, Kalimpong, Feb. 24: About 850 members of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha-affiliated Janmukti Asthai Karmachari Sangathan from Kalimpong today decided to quit the organisation and form a new independent organisation.

The development comes two weeks after over 5,000 people, mostly Morcha supporters, joined the Trinamul Congress.

The JAKS's Kalimpong branch held a meeting under the leadership of its unit president, K.C. Rai, today and it was unanimously decided that about 850 members would quit the organisation tomorrow.

"We have decided to form a new organisation called the Payband Karmachari Sangathan, GTA, Kalimpong District. For now, the new outfit will not be affiliated to any party and operate independently," said Rai.

There are over 5,000 casual employees at the GTA and vast majority of them are members of the JAKS. In the past two weeks, another group of about 100 JAKS members from Kalimpong had quit the organisation and said they would form a new outfit that would be an affiliate of Trinamul.

The main demand of the GTA casual employees is regularisation of their jobs.

Contacted, Machendra Subba, the president of the JAKS, said he would comment only after getting a formal report on the mass desertion.