GRC quits GJAC

SNS, Siliguri, 27 August 2013: Following the lead of All India Gorkha League (AIGL), Gorkha Rashtriya Congress (GRC) ~ another constituent of the pro-Gorkhaland conglomerate, spearheading the statehood movement after the Centre nodded in favour of Telangana, has quit the group, saying that it has been championing for long Darjeeling Hills’ merger in Sikkim ~ a stance that stands in opposition to the others’ demand for Gorkhaland. 

The Gorkhaland Joint Action Committee (GJAC) was constituted involving nine parties, including the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha (GJMM), in the first week of August. 

The GRC president, Mr Nima Lama, said he had recently informed the GJAC chairman about their decision to quit the GJAC. 

“We had joined the GJAC and attended its meetings. But finally we realised this is a wrong platform for us because our demand is not Gorkhaland. We have been fighting for unification of Darjeeling Hills with Sikkim ~ the mother state of which the Hills under Bengal were parts, as history says. We have served a memorandum to the AICC vice president Mr Rahul Gandhi and another senior Congress leader Mr C P Joshi on 7 August in Delhi, demanding unification of Darjeeling Hills with Sikkim,” he said. 

Addressing a rally of the students in Darjeeling today, a visibly upset GJMM chief, Mr Bimal Gurung said that the GJMM would continue striving for the statehood movement, if need be, all alone. 

“We have been carrying on with the movement since 2007 and our resolve would not flag,” he added. When contacted, the GJAC chairman Mr Enos Das Pradhan admitted the fact, saying that Mr Lama had informed him about his party’s stance. 

“We wonder why they had joined the platform, knowing full well that it had been formed to spearhead the movement for Gorkhaland. We would review the emerging situation at a meeting slated for 30 August,” he said. 

Asked to comment on Mr Gurung having warned that he might demand something else other than Gorkhaland in the coming days, Mr Lama said: “We have no idea what Mr Gurung has hinted at. If this connotes merger of the Hills with Nepal we would oppose it tooth and nail. India is our motherland and we want to live here as patriotic Indians. However, if he hints at the Hills’ merger with Sikkim, we are with him.”