No division of Bengal, reiterates Mamata Banerjee.... Wanted common candidate, GJM didn’t respond: Mamata

Deep Gazmer,TNN | Apr 14, 2014: DARJEELING: Chief minister Mamata Banerjee did not take her friend-turned-foe Gorkha Janmukti Morcha's (GJM) name even once in her entire speech on Sunday, but still drove home her point that she was against division of the state. 

As usual, the chief minister started off her speech in broken Nepali, which now seems to have become her trademark when in the Hills. "Pahar ko daju ra baini, mero pani daju-baini. Kasto chau. Pahar shanti ma rahos (People of the Hills are also my brother and sisters. How are you? Let the Hills be in peace)," she said to supporters who braved a light drizzle and gathered at Chowrastha, venue for the election meeting to campaign for party candidate Baichung Bhutia. 

Calling people to vote for Bhutia, the "pahar ko chora" (son of the hills) in the upcoming Lok Sabha election, Mamata asked voters to cast their vote without fear. "Gorkhas, who guard our country, should not be afraid. I want a free and fair election. Earlier, there used to be only rigging and dictatorship. But that won't happen this time and I will ensure it," she said to the charged-up crowd that comprised supporters mostly from outside Darjeeling town and the Limboo and Lepcha communities. 

The Trinamool chief said that unlike the BJP, she was not double-faced and that she would do everything to ensure the unity of the Hills and plains. "The BJP says two different things in the Hills and plains. But I don't double-talk. The bond between the Hills and plains will remain. The Hills is our honour and there won't be any division," asserted Banerjee, with the crowd cheering her on. 

Without taking the GJM's name, Mamata said: "I had called them up several times before announcing our party candidate's name. And each time they said they would discuss it in their meeting. I wanted to field a consensus candidate from the Hills. But now I realize that they were busy contemplating with the BJP in Delhi." 

She also reiterated that it was the GJM who wanted the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) but had failed to run it properly. "You asked for the GTA. I gave all the departments that were needed except a few. What else do you want? At least do some work," she said, alleging: "In the name of politics, you are looting the GTA funds, which is for the people. Sending your own children to study abroad while closing schools and enforcing bandhs in the Hills. Is this right? I will never tolerate this." 

Asserting that her party would make it to Delhi, Mamata reminded people of the development work she has undertaken in two and a half years and promised a special package for the Hills. "I'll work for the development of the Hills till the end," she said. 

Rajya Sabha MP Mithun Chakraborty, Mukul Roy and a host of party leaders from the Hills shared the dais with her and Bhutia.

Wanted common candidate, GJM didn’t respond: Mamata
ENS, Kolkata | April 14, 2014: Having failed to drum up their support for her party’s candidate in Darjeeling, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee Sunday put the blame on the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha saying that the hill party did not respond to her call for a consensus candidate.
“Before the elections were announced, I called the Morcha thrice to put up a common candidate. Every time they replied saying “Charcha ho raha hai (we are having discussions)”. Then they sold the ticket to Delhi. They do it every time the elections are here. Don’t you have a good candidate here? Why do you have to bring somebody from Delhi?’’ she asked, in an apparent reference to BJP candidate S S Ahluwalia.
GJM has extended support to Ahuwalia. Mamata, the West Bengal chief minister, was addressing a rally at Mall in Darjeeling in support of her party candidate Baichung Bhutia. Without naming the Morcha, she alleged that a politics of “loot of public funds” was going on in the hills. “Except two or three, we transferred all the relevant departments under the state government to the GTA. But no work has been done. Now they are trying to set the hills on fire,” Mamata said.
Coming down on the ‘bandhs’ (shutdowns), Mamata said, “Here you close everything, the schools, the markets and you enjoy life elsewhere. Money is being squandered away.”
Asserting that she will not allow any division of state, she said her government was bringing in development in the hills with special packages. “We have set up a polytechnic college, an engineering college, a degree college, a project for drinking water at Darjeeling,” Mamata said.
Later, in Siliguri, she said the Trinamool Congress will emerge as the “No. 1 party in the country” after the elections and “we will decide who will become the prime minister.”
Meanwhile, Contacted, the GJM general secretary Roshan Giri said at least he never received any calls from the chief minister. “Whom did she call? At least, she did not call me. And so far as her allegation of looting of money is concerned, she should clarify whose fund is being looted,” Giri told Indian Express over phone.