Former V-C to float new organisation

Mohan Prasad, SNS, Kurseong, 26 July 2013: Mr Mahendra P Lama, the former Vice-Chancellor of Sikkim University and a noted academic from the Darjeeling Hills, is all set to float an organisation in the Hills. 

His decision to contest the coming Lok Sabha election slated for next year as an Independent candidate from the Darjeeling constituency has already created flutters in the political circles in the Hills. The AIGL has already decided to support him while the GJMM is keeping a studied silence. 

The profile of the new organisation ~ whether it would be a political one ~ is yet to be decided. But according to sources close to the academician, the new outfit would propagate his own concept of Gorkhaland that is different from the one being championed by the GJMM. 

Mr Lama is now busy visiting different places across the district, meeting a cross-section of the people and seeking their opinions over his decision to contest the election. The response he is receiving is encouraging, his close aides said. 

“With the collective dream of Gorkhaland being upstaged by the GJMM’s somersault for GTA and no viable alternative emerging to the GJMM’s hegemony, the people might take interest in the new outfit to be floated at the academic’s behest. Frustrated leaders and activists from several parties, including the GJMM, might join hands with him in the coming days,” said an observer. 

His argument that an MP can bring changes for the better in the Hills appears to be resonating in the collective Hills mind. 

“A son of the soil and a person of erudition and empathy for the people being elected MP can impart a fillip to development that is now being pushed alone by the GTA. If the MP and the GTA can work in concord it will bode well for the development of the Hills,” said a resident of Mirik, adding that he was overwhelmed with the comprehensiveness of Mr Lama’s vision of Gorkhaland. 

Mr Lama is taking pains to make the people aware that the concept of the separate state as envisioned by him and the conventional concept that has its champions in the GJMM and GNLF stand at variance in their basic cores. 

“Mr Lama stands for broadness as contrasted with ethnic parochialism that is the hallmark of the movement for separate statehood. The aspiration has been there for long, but we have to shed narrowness and embrace all the communities like the Bengalis, Adivasis and Biharis living here for ages so that they too become vibrant parts of the movement. And this is what Mr Lama epitomises,” said a confidante of the academic.