CM stance shuts talks doors in Hills

Saugata Roy, TNN | Aug 10, 2013, KOLKATA: The immolation bids in Darjeeling - a shocking new trend in the GenX Gorkhaland agitation - do not gel with the grit and valour of the Gorkhas. Gorkha Janmukti Morcha leaders call it a mode of non-violent agitation by which an agitator harms no one but himself, but the suicide attempts by Morcha supporters are a pointer to the desperation waiting to ignite the powder keg. 

GJM MLA from Kalimpong Harka Bahadur Chhetri keeps his fingers crossed. 

"The GJM president still has control over the movement. The situation may go out of hand if GJM leaders are forced to go underground, handing the mantle to youngsters," Chhetri warned.

The danger has aggravated with the discovery of a Maoist poster in Darjeeling and police reports of armed KLO cadres entering the Hills. 

The state's "rough and tough" stance is in sharp contrast with Assam CM Tarun Gogoi's approach towards the Bodo rebels. Gogoi is taking the defiant Coch-Rajbanshi and the Bodo representatives with him to Delhi on August 11 to hold talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. But he hasn't compromised with his opposition to their agitation. 

Mamata is in no mood to learn from others. She has her own style of operation - impulsive and unpredictable - that has put the people in the Hills and foothills in a bind. Her marshalling of forces in Darjeeling has helped GJM president Bimal Gurung reclaim lost popularity and consolidate the Hills opposition for the statehood movement. 

Even the Darjeeling Congress has sent a proposal to the Delhi high command seeking union territory status for Darjeeling. 

No one had thought that the situation would turn so bad so soon. 

Only on July 27, GJM MLA Harka Bahadur Chhetri had announced that GJM won't raise the Gorkhaland demand so long as Mamata is CM. 

On Friday, he was camping in Delhi to meet Congress leader Rahul Gandhi with the statehood demand. 

"What do we do? The CM has strained relations by accepting our party president's resignation from Gorkhaland Territorial Administration. It shows her attitude for us. I do not blame her, but I don't know what went wrong with implementation of GTA agreement," said Chhetri. 

"It is our experience that GTA has been a non-starter. The state government lacks sincerity. It transferred only 37 of the 59 subjects mentioned in the agreement and 50% posts are lying vacant. We don't have the powers to make rules that form part of the agreement," the GJM MLA said. 

However, meeting the GTA demands won't pacify the GJM, given the mood in the Hills. "We can't dump the demand for Gorkhaland," Chhetri said, leaving hints that it has now become the party's compulsion to stay afloat in Hills politics. 

Mamata has her compulsions, too. With the Lok Sabha polls on the anvil, she cannot afford to go soft on Gorkhaland and lose the opportunity of making dents in the Dooars and plains where Congress is on the backfoot. 

With Congress likely to suffer reverses in the Matigara-Naxalbari area where its candidate Sankar Malakar won in 2011 with support from the Nepali settlers in the area along with others, the party seems to be dabbling with Gurung just as former Union minister Buta Singh did with GNLF supremo Subash Ghisingh in the Eighties. 

Gurung has one thing in common with Ghisingh. Both rode the Hills sentiment for Gorkhaland, but settled for autonomy - Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council or Gorkhaland Territorial Administration. 

But the Centre's sanction for Telangana has stoked the embers that the GJM president can't afford to ignore. Sensing the impact of Telangana, the Pradesh Congress has distanced itself from its Darjeeling unit. 

"I have come to know that the Darjeeling Congress sent a proposal to declare Darjeeling as a Union territory. But it has not been endorsed by the Pradesh Congress. The PCC did not forward it to the Congress high command," said PCC president Pradip Bhattacharya. 

Bhattacharya, however, didn't deny that the Congress has its eyes on the Darjeeling seat that is now with BJP's Jaswant Singh. 

Asked if Congress would go for an understanding with the Morcha, he said: "I can say for certain that there is no such move at the moment. However, I can't say about the future," the PCC president said.