GJMM to urge CWC members to finalise separate state stand

SNS, Darjeeling, 15 July : The senior leaders of the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha (GJMM) today said they would send letters to all the 42 members of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) ~ the party’s highest decision-making body ~ to take a final call on the demand for Telangana as well as the same for Gorkhaland. 

“In the letters addressed individually to all the 42 CWC members, we have demanded the board to put both the demands for separate statehoods on an equal footing.

It is our view that both these demands should be of equal importance to the Centre and the treatment should be the same,” said the GJMM general secretary, Mr Roshan Giri, today. 

“We welcome the decision of the Congress high command to entrust the CWC with the task of taking the final decision about the demand to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh to carve out Telangana,” said Mr Giri. 

“But at the same time, the Centre should not underestimate the demand for Gorkhaland, as it is the oldest statehood demand in the country, dating back to well over 100 years. Besides, we made it clear in the letter that the Gorkhaland state must comprise the three sub-divisions of the Darjeeling Hills, Terai and Dooars,” he said. 

Referring to the resolution passed unanimously in the Sikkim Assembly in March 2011 in favour of Gorkhaland, Mr Giri said the resolution had held the cause of Gorkhaland as genuine, legally justified and within the parameters of the Constitution. 

Meanwhile, the GJMM chief, Mr Bimal Gurung, seems to be activating the party’s frontal organisations on a war footing through indoor meetings. He is said to have held a meeting with the youth leaders of the party today.