JMM to float tea trade union

TT, Jalpaiguri, Dec. 2: Leaders of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha in north Bengal have decided to float a tea trade union by next month sidelining John Barla who claims to be a leader of the party.

The JMM does not a tea union in the region and Barla, who claims to be the president of Progressive Tea Workers' Union, has been running the outfit as a frontal organisation of the party since 2013.

"We had been to Jharkhand and we had a meeting in the residence of our leader and former chief minister Hemant Soren. It has been decided that the JMM will float a new tea trade union," Bidhan Sarkar, joint secretary, north Bengal regional committee, JMM, said. "The PTWU was floated by the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad and it has got nothing to do with the JMM."

The decision was endorsed by JMM leaders like Raju Bara, Barla's close associate.

The JMM's move has left Barla agitated. "I am in JMM and I have brought the party to north Bengal. It is unfortunate that some leaders are trying to impose their decisions in the name of central leaders. I have no information that the central leaders have instructed them to float a union. I am the president of PTWU, that is functioning as a JMM front. It was floated by the Adivasi Vikas Parishad. But now, we don't have any link with them," Barla said today.

Barla became the regional committee president of the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad in 2008. In 2011, he was expelled by the party after expressing support for the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha. In 2012, he helped form the JMM's Dooars unit. Barla, who claims that he joined the JMM in 2012 never held a post in the party. In 2013, he took up the leadership of the PTWU.

In 2014, Barla joined the Joint Forum, a common platform of 24 tea unions, as a PTWU representative. Recently, he met Trinamul leaders and along with them opposed the tea industry strike call by the forum on December 1.

Yesterday, Sourav Chakraborty, the Jalpaiguri district Trinamul president, claimed Barla was with the party.

A JMM leader said: "He is too unpredictable. His performance has left us disappointed and is affecting JMM's image. We doubt if he even has a primary membership of JMM but he introduces himself as a party leader. This is why we have decided to work without him and float a union. He is welcome to join. But first, he will have to take a stand."

Today, Barla met Gorkha Janmukti Morcha leaders in the Dooars and announced that the general strike called by the hill party on December 10 will be observed in the Dooars as well. Barla, also the president of United Trade Union Front floated by Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, said tea estates will be out of the strike's purview.

Earlier, Barla had opposed the strike.