West Bengal govt must not interfere in Gorkhaland Territorial Administration: GJM

TNN | Nov 18, 2013: KOLKATA: Ahead of the November 20 bipartite discussions with the Mamata Banerjee government, Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) president Bimal Gurung on Sunday urged for a hands-off policy by the state to run theGorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA).

"Among the main agenda in the bipartite meeting is that there should be no interference from the government in running the GTA," Gurung said, giving the GTA sabhasads a two-year timeframe to complete the development mandate. Gurung's statements, however, gave no indication that he was willing to head the GTA again.

On November 10, Gurung had met President Pranab Mukherjee in Darjeeling with a host of demands, including the release of 10 GTA sabhasads and 144 GJM activists still in jail. The President, it is believed, had urged Gurung to resolve the Darjeeling impasse within the GTA framework and asked him to take over the chief executive's post, from which he resigned in July 30.

The state, however, didn't take it lightly. The Trinamool Congress government felt any discussion with GJM, without the state in the loop, will only complicate the problem further. All this came at a time when the chief minister's persistent efforts had broken the deadlock over Gorkhaland.

The state isn't wrong. The GJM has tried to extract political mileage out of it. Gurung said, "I met the Honourable President of India last week and the only reason he met me is because the central government knows that I am the only leader for Gorkhaland." Now it demands non-interference by the state.

The GJM is already trying to set the agenda of the back-to-back meetings. "Right now, the agenda isn't Gorkhaland. We will discuss how to make GTA more powerful and place our demand for bringing amendments to make it effective," said GJM's Kalimpong MLA Harkabahadur Chetri.

Gurung took it a step ahead. "I am giving two years to GTA sabhasads to transform Darjeeling into Switzerland. They will only focus on development and must work honestly and efficiently. They must work for the common people and not for themselves. We have Rs 1,000 crore in GTA and the GTA will bring about development. The GTA will soon start it's own subordinate selection board where it will start recruiting unemployed youth. The subordinate selection board will have its own GTA recruitment exam. There are 4,000 vacancies in the GTA," he said.

"Our agitation for Gorkhaland will now go to Delhi and we will put pressure on the central government for Gorkhaland," he added. But the question remains whether the government will allow GJM a free-hand in the recruitments. Earlier, it had scuttled a move by the GJM to recruit its now-disbanded Gorkhaland Personnel.

The meeting between the GJM and the state government would be held on November 20, and the tripartite talks involving the party, the state and the Centre is scheduled for the next day. Sources said the bipartite meeting would be attended by state chief secretary Sanjay Mitra, state home secretary Basudeb Banerjee and GJM leaders and that the tripartite meeting would be attended by additional secretary of the Union ministry of home affairs K Skandan, besides Banerjee and the GJM leaders.

"The government should cooperate for smooth and proper functioning of GTA, otherwise it would be a failure," said Chetri. Explaining their insistence for the amendments, a senior GJM leader said: "The amendments are necessary for proper functioning of the GTA Sabha. Primary among the amendments is reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the GTA elections as well as quota for the two sections in jobs."

GJM general-secretary Roshan Giri said: "Issues like granting of ST status to all hill communities except SCs, inclusion of the GTA in the North East Council, establishment of a central university and transfer of reserved forests to the GTA would be discussed at the bipartite and tripartite talks."