GJMM chief might be toying with idea of hills’ merger with sikkim

SNS, Darjeeling, 27 August , In a veiled threat, the GJMM chief Mr Bimal Gurung today stated that his party might leave the beaten tracks and go for a movement demanding “something else” other than Gorkhaland in the coming days if the Centre continues keeping mum on their statehood stir. 

“We shall demand something else, if the Centre feels disinclined to intervene in the Gorkhaland movement. Time would unfold things. I would announce our new stance at the appropriate time,” he said while addressing a mammoth gathering of students at the bus stand in Darjeeling.

Indicating that the party might leave the GTA behind in its stir for statehood, he said that he is not inclined to talk about the GTA. “I have already quit it”, Mr Gurung said. He had quit the post of the chief executive of the autonomous body on 31 July to plunge into the Gorkhaland movement following the UPA endorsement of the demand for Telangana. 

The election to select his successor is slated for 4 September. However, things are murky as the state government has not made clear its stance regarding the GJMM demand to release the GTA Sabha members now behind bars as a condition for its participation in the election. 

So far, police arrested 10 GTA Sabha members along with over 800 GJMM activists in connection with old cases. Speculations are rife as to what the GJMM chief has hinted at by alluding to ‘something else other than Gorkhaland’. 

According to an observer, two options might be in his mind ~ one is the demand for Greater Nepal and another unification of the Darjeeling Hills with Sikkim. 

“The Hills now under Bengal were once under the Nepalese occupation after Nepal annexed these tracts from Sikkim and things remained so for around three decades till the East India Company dispensation annexed these lands from Nepal in the course of the First Anglo-Nepal War in 1815 and then returned them back to Sikkim by Titaliya Treaty signed two years later. 

However, it is most unlikely that the GJMM would pitch for Greater Nepal as it would turn their movement secessionist. But it is very likely that he is toying with the idea of the Hills’ merger with Sikkim ~ the mother state which the Hills now under Bengal were parts of. The demand has been there for a long time and it would definitely gain momentum in case the GJMM throws its weight behind it,” the observer added.