GJM bent on breaking us: CPRM

EOI, Darjeeling, 8 May 2016: Reiterating its commitment towards the more-than-a-hundred year-old statehood demand, the Communist Party of Revolutionary Marxist today accused the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha of taking recourse to every measure, including bribing people, to break the Communist party.

Speaking at a public meeting in Darjeeling, CPRM leaders said they would neither cower to the GJM’s intimidation nor betray the statehood demand. “Subash Ghisingh’s Gorkha National Liberation Front tried to break us but they did not succeed. And now, the GJM is following the same path using money and muscle power. But we will not succumb and grow stronger instead as we are loyal to the statehood demand, the aspiration of all the hill people,” said Arun Ghatani, general secretary of the Democratic Revolutionary Youth Federation (DRYF), and Kurseong CPRM candidate for the Assembly election.

The CPRM had originally wanted to hold the day’s public meeting on May 1 at Sumeru Manch in the heart of town, but could not because the civic body did not grant permission. Highlighting this apparent apathy, CPRM spokesperson Govind Chhetri said, “We do not get permission to hold public meetings from the municipality (for the venue) or the district administration. In fact, we were denied permission even in the run-up to the Assembly election. We fail to understand the reasons.” He quipped the party has already sought permission to conduct a public meeting on May 1, 2017.

The CPRM spokesperson also said the party would start a crusade against the GJM’s rampant corruption in the hills. “There is corruption and nepotism everywhere in the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration. We will start a campaign to highlight these evils to the general public,” Chhetri said.

Speaking on the just concluded Assembly polls and the fate of the party’s three candidates, CPRM vice president JB Rai alleged that the GJM and the Jan Andolan Party (JAP) had distributed crores of rupees to influence voters. “We have reliable and correct information that the GJM distributed nearly Rs8,000-10,000 in each booth in Kalimpong, and the JAP also distributed Rs10,000 in each of the 261 booths. In all, they spent Rs16-18 crores in Kalimpong alone during the election,” he said demanding to know from where such huge amounts of money had come from.

For the 2016 Assembly election, the Election Commission of India allowed each candidate to spend Rs28 lakh for campaigning. Meanwhile, CPRM candidates said if they emerge victorious they would take up issues of ‘parcha patta’ (land rights) for tea garden, cinchona and forest workers, demand for the implementation of a three-tier panchayat system, seek to increase the existing eight blocks in the hills to 24, and convert Darjeeling, Kurseong and Mirik into Mahakuma Parishads.