‘CM’s anti-statehood rhetoric a boost for statehood stir’..... ‘GJMM getting alienated from Hill people’

SNS, Siliguri, 4 September 2013: Ridiculing the ruling party’s brag of having alienated the GJMM from the Hill people by brandishing development as a counterfoil to statehood-related shutdowns, several leaders today claimed that the reverse has just happened. The chief minister’s anti-statehood rhetoric has further boosted the morale of the statehood movement, claimed the leaders of the pro-statehood parties and outfits other than the GJMM. 

The Gorkhaland Rajya Nirman Mancha president, Mr Dawa Pakhrin, who has left Gorkhaland Joint Action Committee a few days ago, said: “I respect Mamata Banerjee for her pro-people crusade. But her yesterday’s speech and her cavalier handling of the sensitive tangle has negatively dented her image. She has rather inadvertently consolidated the unity among the communities over the issue of Gorkhaland. We all were hurt by her taking recourse to divide-and-rule strategy to weaken the movement for Gorkhaland,” he said. 

“Though I am not now with the GJAC, I am extending support to its movement. I welcome the GJMM’s decision not to attend today’s GTA meeting. I again state that the tripartite meeting the Centre is to convene would not yield any result unless the issue of statehood figures prominently there,” he added. 

A senior CPRM leader, Mr Gobin Chhetri, said the chief minister wants to create history without understanding the tangled nuances involved in history. “The people of the Hills have not taken kindly to her misguided effort to conjure up fissures along ethnic lines to weaken the momentum of the statehood movement,” he said. 

“My party is convinced that a tripartite meeting held on an agenda sans the issue of Gorkhaland would come a cropper,” he added. 

The GJAC chairman, Mr Enos Das Pradhan, said the chief minister has inadvertently strengthened their resolve to fight to the last. “This is evident in thousands of people taking part in today’s Kalimpong rally. 

Over 30,000 people assembled at Kalimpong Mela Ground to nail the lie of the chief minister’s boast. The number would increase in the coming days. We would not budge an inch from our demand for Gorkhaland and the tripartite meeting must focus itself on it ~ the single agenda of the people,” Mr Pradhan said. 

SNS: To show that its clout has remained unscathed despite the ruling party’s boast of winning the heart of the Hills across the ethnic spectrum, the GJMM has staged a huge rally in Kalimpong town ~ the place where the chief minister had addressed the Lepcha congregation yesterday.  
Braving the inclement weather, thousands of people, mostly members of the GJMM’s affiliates, took part, reaffirming their resolve to get on with their identity/statehood struggle through sloganeering.  
Meanwhile, All India Tamang Buddhist Association (AITBA) has issued a press release today that says that one of its portfolio members and general secretary, Mr Sanjay Moktan has been expelled for his having met the chief minister and submitted a memorandum to her yesterday in Kalimpong without having collected consent from the outfit’s central committee. 
Mr Moktan purportedly supported the CM for her crusade for development on behalf of Tamang Youth Association, an outfit working for the uplift of the youths belonging to the Scheduled Tribe community that is a part of the generic Gorkha group. 
The AITBA president, Mr Bimal Zimba, in his press release, stated that his outfit stands for bifurcating Bengal to carve out Gorkhaland. 
“Mr Moktan has betrayed the cause. He had made such mistakes earlier too. But we refrained from taking action in the larger interests of the Association. Today, we have expelled him and we would not take responsibility for what he says in the future,” he added in the release.  
Notably, the CM had said in her speech in Kalimpong that some Tamang youths had approached her and submitted a memorandum. "The state government is ready to work for their development", she added.

SNS, Siliguri, 4 September: The All India Trinamul Congress general secretary, Mr Mukul Roy, today claimed that the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha has got alienated from the people of the Hills with the party having autocratically rammed indefinite shutdown on them. 

Addressing the press at NHPC Bhawan near Siliguri, Mr Roy said the Bengal chief minister Miss Mamata Banerjee’s Kalimpong trip had put the final nail on its grave. 

“The people are now overwhelmingly with Miss Banerjee and her dream of a thriving Hills,” he added. “The common people are now restive for a respite from the GJMM’s shutdown histrionics. They are not for dividing Bengal to carve out Gorkhaland. They have boisterously responded to the CM’s clarion call for development in preference to separation. We would fight the GJMM’s divisive plank with a constructive one for development and goodwill for all,” he said. He further said the shutdown is now becoming a flop.