GJM delegation to head to Delhi for talks soon

Rohit Khanna & Deep Gazmer | TNN | Aug 10, 2017, DARJEELING: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha will send a team comprising the three Hills MLAs and senior leaders to Delhi in a couple of days after receiving positive communication from the central government. The party, however, did not clarify if the proposed talks will be centred on Gorkhaland, which the party has been asserting would have to be the sole agenda for any meeting.

On Wednesday, Swaraj Thapa, a GJM central committee leader and study forum member, said: "We have received communication from the central government on an informal level. and have prepared a team that will go to Delhi for talks with the Centre."

The Hills bandh for the Gorkhaland demand has reached its 56th day and the GJM is banking on the BJP-led NDA government — which, so far, has kept a studied silence — to get them off the hook by initiating dialogues at the earliest.

Thapa termed the ongoing Hills impasse a political crisis and not a law-and-order situation as was being propagated by the state. "We are conducting dharna and rallies peacefully everyday in the Hills without any incidents. We don't see any role that the police have to play in the present circumstances," he said.

The GJM's central committee on Tuesday held a meeting to deliberate on the Gorkhaland issue and take stock of the prevailing situation in the region. GJM assistant general secretary Binay Tamang issued a press statement on Wednesday announcing a slew of proposals that were adopted in the nearly four-hour-long meeting to make the ongoing agitation more powerful and effective.

Key decisions taken by the GJM central committee was to send a team to Delhi soon and to send another delegation to the northeast to meet the chief ministers and MPs of the states to garner support for Gorkhaland. Tamang also said that supporting Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Quit India Movement initiative from August 9 to 15, the party would organize similar programmes in the Hills, Terai and Dooars and on NH-55 and NH-10, among others.

The indefinite bandh has remained peaceful except for the incidents of vehicle torching on Rohini Road in Kurseong in the early hours of Wednesday and near Hanuman Khola on NH-10 on Tuesday night. GJM condemned the torching of the newspaper vehicle on Rohini Road, saying its supporters did not have any hand in it.