TMC stages first public rally in Sikkim

SNS, Gangtok, 22 November 2013: Sikkim state Trinamul Congress staged its first public rally in Gangtok today. The party came up in September with the former deputy chief minister, Mr P T Lucksom becoming its president.

Around a 100 people took to the streets with posters and flexes with the party president, Mamata Banerjee’s photos embossed on.

Mr Lucksom said the debut rally demanded restoration of the seat ~ reservation for the Nepalese in the Sikkim Legislative Assembly that was done way with in 1978-79 during the erstwhile Janata Party government.

Previously, the community had 15 seats reserved for them in the Assembly. The number was the same with the Bhutia-Lepcha community’s reserved seats based on the Chogyal-envisaged parity formula.

The Representation of the People (Amendment) Act, 1979 had abolished the reservation for the majority Nepalese community while reducing the reserved seats for the Bhutia-Lepcha community to 12.

“The All India Trinamul Congress general secretary, Mr Mukul Roy has nodded us to initiate more such programmes in Sikkim,” the state unit president said. 

Since its inception, the party keeps raising the issue of the old laws, protected under Article 371-F of the Constitution, now supposedly under attack from the Centre. 

The rally took off at Bansilal Petrol Pump near the Police Headquarter in the town, moved through Zero Point and Tibet Road and ended at the point whence it started. 

The secretary of the unit, Mr Tshering Lepcha, informed that they would meet the state’s Governor later this month.