‘Secret deal between Centre, Chamling’

SNS, Gangtok, 15 July 2013: The Sikkim Himali Rajya Parishad (SHRP) alleged that a five-point deal has been sealed between the Sikkim Chief Minister Mr Pawan Chamling and Union finance minister Mr P Chidambaram, on the issue of the implementation of the Income Tax Act regarding the old settlers of the state. 

The party demanded the deal be made public. The youth wing of the party pasted posters in the capital last Sunday, demanding unconditional release of the party president, Dr A D Subba and 32 others, including three women, who had been arrested while protesting against the writ petition filed by some old settlers regarding the IT exemption issue earlier this month. Mr Subba is reported to have been admitted at STNM Hospital as he was found ill. 

The party has remained in the van of the movement against the controversial writ petition filed by some old settlers of the Indian origin, demanding Income Tax exemption to the community of the old settlers on par with the holders of the Sikkim Subject Certificates. 

The petition is also said to have stated that the exemption should be repealed for SSC holders if the old settlers remain deprived of the facility. 

Such a stance seems to have angered the community as a whole and the parties, otherwise antagonistic on the political front, are supposed to be closing ranks to confront the challenge posed by the organisation of the old settlers. Several meetings and rallies were organised over the past few weeks to articulate anger of the Nepalese community against the old settlers for having branded a section of the Sikkimese Nepalese as migrants from Nepal and thus foreigners. 

They demanded the petitioners to withdraw the petition at the maiden hearing of the case. 

Things have assumed a new spin after the apex court ruled that no pressure should be put on the petitioners to withdraw the petition when the petition came up for hearing last Saturday.