State’s pressure on gjmm yields results....34 out of 40 elected sabha members attended GTA meet

SNS, Darjeeling, 27 September 2013: The state government’s relentless pressure on the GJMM to fall in line has yielded result today as the GTA Sabha members elected the party’s senior leader and a GTA executive member, Mr Binay Tamang, who is now behind bars, as the new chief executive. 

With the election, things long stuck due to the GJMM’s recalcitrance are supposed to have come on tracks. The crisis began after the former CE, Mr Bimal Gurung, resigned on 30 July to plunge headlong into the Gorkhaland movement in the aftermath of the UPA’s concession on Telangana. 

Mr Tamang was absent while being elected as he is now in jail. Several other GTA members are also now in jail in connection with some old cases the state administration slapped on them to rein in GJMM’s statehood belligerence. 

Thirty four out of 40 elected Sabha members were present today when the CE was elected at Gorkha Rangmanch Bhavan at 12 p.m. The meeting was over in around 45 minutes. 

After the meeting, the GTA chairman Pradip Pradhan, said the Sabha members had placed two resolutions, one electing Mr Tamang as the new CE and the other demanding release of all the GTA members and the GJMM activists now lodged in jails. “I will forward the resolution to the state government soon,” said the GTA’s principal secretary, Mr R D Meena. 

Asked when the arrested GTA members, including Mr Tamang, would be released, he said it is up to the state government to decide. The GJMM central committee had met at the party headquarters at Singhamari at 10 a.m. to decide today’s strategy. 

Mr Gurung presided over it. He, however, refused to speak to the reporters. The GJMM general secretary, Mr Roshan Giri, however, reiterated that the statehood movement would begin again from 20 October. “We have elected the new CE only to keep the body alive till some pending works are done. Mr Gurung will decide how long the GTA would function,” he said. 

Asked where Mr Tamang is right now, Mr Giri said he would arrive in Darjeeling on parole.