Morcha to discuss LS candidate on Feb 5

AVIJIT SINHA, TT, Siliguri, Jan. 24: Gorkha Janmukti Morcha president Bimal Gurung today said a decision on whether the party would field its own nominee or support any other candidate for the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat would be taken at a meeting on February 5.

Asked about the possibility of an alliance with Trinamul, Gurung said: “A meeting will be held on February 5 and it will be attended by all prominent leaders of the Morcha from the hills, Terai and Dooars.
The meeting will decide if the Morcha will have its own candidate or extend support to any other party in Darjeeling in the Lok Sabha polls.”

The Morcha leaders will meet at the party headquarters in Patlebas, Darjeeling, on that day.

“Even if we field our own candidate, we are confident of winning the seat as in the 2009 polls. The candidate we had supported (Jaswant Singh of the BJP) in 2009 had won by a margin of 2.65 lakh votes,” Gurung said in Sukna, 10km from here.

Trinamul leaders refused to speculate if their party and the Morcha would join hands for the Darjeeling seat.

“It is too early to make such comments. Both Trinamul and the Morcha are separate political parties and have their own strategies and agendas,” a Trinamul leader said here today.

Gurung said he had asked the chief minister during her tour of the hills this week to form separate development boards for all hill communities.

A delegation of the All India Gurung Tammu Buddhist Association met Mamata Banerjee at the forest bungalow in Sukna today and requested her to form a development board for the Gurung community.

In the afternoon, Mamata left for Bagdogra to take a flight to Calcutta.