GRC meets Guv over merger issue

SNS, Kurseong, 11 November 2013: Demanding merger of Sikkim, Darjeeling district and the Dooars, the Gorkha Rashtriya Congress (GRC) served a deputation to the Governor, Mr M K Narayanan, at Raj Bhawan in Darjeeling last evening. 

The party based in the Darjeeling Hills came up around a decade ago and since then it has been demanding unification of Sikkim and Darjeeling, claiming the Hills under Bengal as ‘lost territory’ of the erstwhile Namgyal Kingdom of Sikkim. 

GRC president, Mr Nima Lama said they had served a six-page deputation to the Governor, demanding the merger. The meeting lasted for about half an hour, he said. 

To press for the merger, the GRC memorandum dwelt on the sensitive matter viewed from different angles. As per the GRC leaders, Darjeeling district and the Dooars, now under Bengal, were never parts of Bengal, as these were Sikkimese territories taken away from time to time by the British dispensation in course of wars and treaties. 

Mr Lama said the merger of the Hills and the Dooars under Bengal with Sikkim is the only viable solution to the dragging Gorkhaland and identity tangles of the people here. He further said they had replied in the affirmative when the Governor asked them whether they would like to stay in unified Sikkim