Harka to launch party

Rajeev Ravidas, TT, Kalimpong, Dec. 6: Harka Bahadur Chhetri today said he planned to float a political party, months after he left the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha.

Chhetri, who heads the Kalimpong District Demand Committee, did not give a clear answer when asked what his prospective party's stand would be on the Gorkhaland issue.

Chhetri today said there was a need to bring about political change in the hills and the formation of a district was the first step in that direction.

"The second and third steps will follow. We are thinking about it (forming a party) in the district demand committee because we are being pressured by our friends and supporters to launch a party," he said.

Asked if the decision to form the party was more or less finalised, Chhetri said: "More finalised, not less."

He added: "There can't be politics without a political party. A party is required to provide good administration. We will discuss this among ourselves and take a decision soon. It will not take long."

Asked what the new party's stand on the demand for Gorkhaland would be, the Kalimpong MLA said: "We are at primary school. Gorkhaland is a university. We will first have to think of getting to secondary school and then on to college. Maybe, we will not be able to reach university in our generation, the next generation possibly can," he said.

Last week, officials in Nabanna, the state secretariat, had said finishing touches were being given to the Kalimpong district demand. Some sources said Mamata Banerjee wanted to back Chhetri as a local counter-point to the Bimal Gurung-led Gorkha Janmukti Morcha.

Assembly elections are barely five months away, and Chhetri's willingness to float a party now is interesting in this context too.

In the general elections in 2014, Trinamul had fielded Bhaichung Bhutia from the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat. The Morcha did not support him, saying he is not a local face. But it supported the BJP's S.S. Ahluwalia, who is also not a local face but belongs to a party that had shown some willingness initially to hear out the Morcha on Gorkhaland.

Trinamul has a unit in the hills, but has no leader with a mass following. Chhetri is not a leader of the masses either, but as the MLA of Kalimpong, he enjoys the goodwill of residents in the subdivision.

The MLA said the new party would not be restricted by geography or ethnicity. "We are looking at a huge canvas. We will empower the people. We will focus on real issues concerning the people and work to provide them with basic necessities that continue to elude them," he said.

Chhetri said the land rights of tea garden and cinchona workers would be the priority of the new party.

"These workers have been living in the plantations for 200 years, but their condition is pitiable. It will be gross injustice not to give them land rights. I have already taken up the matter with the government," he said.

Tea garden land is leased out by the state government to companies and the lease has to be renewed every 30 years. The state is the owner of the tea gardens' land. The workers and their families who have been residing in tea plantations for generations since the 1850s do not have land rights.

The cinchona plantations are under the directorate of cinchona and medicinal plantation, which is a state undertaking. Like in tea gardens, the workers of cinchona plantations have no land rights.

Earlier Telegraph report of 3rd December stated as follows :

TT, Calcutta, Dec. 3: The Mamata Banerjee government has decided to give finishing touches to a proposal to make Kalimpong as a separate district to lend more credibility to Harka Bahadur Chhetri as a leader to rival the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha in the Darjeeling hills, sources in Nabanna have said.

A proposal for the creation of the district is expected to be tabled in the next cabinet meeting scheduled for December 18.

"The state government had received a proposal to set up Kalimpong district from Harka Bahadur Chhetri.... A proposal is being prepared and it could be tabled in the next cabinet meeting along with the proposals for forming three other districts - Jhargram, Basirhat and Burdwan (industrial)," said source in the state government.

While the decision to carve out Jhargram, Basirhat and Burdwan (industrial) as separate districts was announced by the chief minister at a public meeting in North 24-Parganas a few days ago, the decision on the proposed Kalimpong district was kept under wraps because of the possibility of adverse ramifications, the sources said.

According to the sources at Nabanna, while setting up the three other districts are purely administrative decisions, the plan to form a Kalimpong district is part of Mamata's political strategy to weaken the Morcha and isolate Bimal Gurung. "The state government is set to clear the proposal of Kalimpong district apparently to keep Gurung under pressure and prop up Chhetri as the main leader of Kalimpong," said a senior government official.

Even though the Morcha has been stating that a separate Kalimpong district was originally the party's demand, sources said the government would make it clear that it was acceding to Harka's demand, not that of anyone else's.

Mamata has been trying to create several other power centres in the hills since Gurung launched an indefinite strike in the hills in August 2013, renewing the demand for Gorkhaland.

The state government had earlier announced development boards for Lepchas, Bhutias, Sherpas, Mangars and Tamangs, which did not go down well with the Morcha.

That her strategy was yielding results was proved in September when Kalimpong MLA Harka Bahadur Chhetri snapped ties with the Morcha and raised the demand for the separate Kalimpong district, sources said.

"The state government was keeping track of developments in the Darjeeling hills since September. The way Chhetri was welcomed by the youths in Kalimpong after he returned to the hills after snapping ties with the Morcha, it had encouraged the ruling establishment," said a senior government official.

GNLF

The GNLF held a meeting in Darjeeling on Sunday to commemorate the signing of a memorandum of settlement by the Centre, state and former party president Subash Ghisingh on December 6, 2005, to bring the hills under the Sixth Schedule.

At the meeting, Bhanu Lama, the organising secretary of the GNLF, said the party would intensify its agitation to bring the hills under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.