Hill demands in House

Vivek Chhetri, TT, Darjeeling, March 17: Darjeeling BJP MP S.S. Ahluwalia today spoke in the Lok Sabha of several longstanding demands of the hill people and requested the Centre to form a committee to look into their problems.

Ahluwalia, who started his speech citing the lack of development in the hills, blamed the Bengal government's alleged step-motherly treatment towards the hills, despite the formation of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA).

"The Gorkhas are in an agitation. Since 1907, they have been in agitation for a separate administrative unit and now the dream is for a separate state. Since 1907, the demand has come up 29 times and during the agitation of Subash Ghisingh, a lot of people died in police firing. In 1988, Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council was formed but he (Ghisingh) did not allow the concept (of Gorkhaland) to be adopted by the people. However, the demand was once again raised from 2007 onwards."

Ahluwalia said that a tripartite agreement for the GTA had been signed on July 18, 2011, but it was signed without dropping the Gorkhaland demand.

"The GTA Act was also given the President's assent... and 59 subjects were transferred but there has been step-motherly treatment from Bengal," he said.

As an example, Ahluwalia cited the partial inclusion of the Nepali language in WBCS examinations though the language is in the Eighth Schedule. "Even though Nepali was included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution in 1992 and candidates can sit for the UPSC examinations in Nepali, there is no option to write one of the papers in Nepali in the WBCS examinations."

Among the demands, Ahluwalia cited Scheduled Tribe status for 10 hill communities.

He said: "I request the Centre to form a committee to look into the pending demands.