GTA nominated members stay low apprehending GJMM vendetta......TMC decides to stage rallies to preempt GJMM from dragging statehood warfare...

Manas R Bannerjee, SNS, Siliguri, 8 August 2013: In a piquant turn of events in the restive Darjeeling Hills, two of the three members of the GTA nominated by the state government ~ one of whom the state government is supposed to have decided to replace Mr Bimal Gurung as the chief of the autonomous body to teach the defiant GJMM a lesson ~ have fled homes in the Hills and they are now staying put in Siliguri. 

According to sources close to them, the Trinamul Congress leadership based in north Bengal has asked them not to go public with any comment on the present volatile situation in the Hills and the ongoing crisis dogging the GTA. 

When contacted, the two nominated members ~ both of them residents of the Darjeeling Hills ~ said that they had come down to Siliguri a few days ago, evidently in apprehension of attack. 

Notably, Mr Durga Kharel, Mr Milan Dukpa and Satish Kumar Thing ~ the last one is a resident of Samsing in the Dooars ~ were nominated as member of the GTA by the state government. Darjeeling-based political observers said the nominated GTA members are in no position to withstand the heat in the Hills. 

“If the state government thinks it can foist one of them on the Hills as the GTA chief it is a pipe dream,” one of them said. Two nominated members refused to comment. “We are keeping a close tab on the developing situation and awaiting the chief minister to decide things,” one of them said. 

On the other hand, a senior GJMM leader, Mr Jyoti Rai, said: “We have not yet received any communication from the state government regarding the decision to foist a nominated member on the GTA as its chief.” “The state government is bound to abide by the rules regarding election of the chief executive in case of vacancy,” he said. 

“Election for a new chief executive would be conducted within one month from the date of resignation. As per rules, 28 August is the deadline for electing a new chief executive,” he also said. “

As the state will fix the date of the election, the principal secretary of the GTA will serve a notice to all the elected members of the body at least 10 days before the date of the election. My party has not yet taken any decision. We will decide on it before 18 August,” he added. 

TMC decides to stage rallies

SNS, Siliguri, 8 August : The Trinamul Congress has decided to stage rallies and meetings across the Dooars to preempt the GJMM from dragging its statehood warfare in the ethnically sensitive plains, particularly in the Dooars. 

A senior Trinamul Congress leader said it is an imperative now as there is a possibility of the statehood heat descending in the plains. 

"True, the movement has so far remained confined within the Hills. But there is no guarantee that things would remain the same. There are reasons to believe, given the GJMM’s Dooars obduracy, that the Hill party would make the Dooars the extended theatre of their statehood battle. So to preempt such bids, we have decided to organise rallies in Nagrakata, Jaigaon and some other places in the Dooars. A message ~ loud and clear ~ should be sent so that the ruling party would not brook any attempt to vitiate the peaceful ambience in the Dooars in the name of Gorkhaland. We are extra-sensitive about the tea plantation areas where the Gorkhas and Adivasis aside from other ethnic groups are in sizeable numbers," the Trinamul leader added. 

However, the observers said things would prove difficult for the ruling party to resist the GJMM if the latter is serious about expanding the contour of the statehood stir in the Dooars. “The party allied with the JMM ~ the breakaway ABAVP faction ~ have done remarkably well in the just concluded rural polls in several parts of the Dooars ~ known as the core area of the region,” an observer said. 

“There are reasons to believe that at least a part of the Adivasi population residing there would throw their weight behind the GJMM and in case such a thing happens, the statehood stir would get a fillip that would prove difficult for the ruling party to contain,” the observer added.