Harka party not in Delhi team - Jana Andolan Party chief seeks logic of exclusion from GMCC delegation to meet Rajnath

Rajeev Ravidas, TT, Kalimpong, Aug. 13: The Jana Andolan Party (JAP) has decided to write to the Gorkhaland Movement Coordination Committee (GMCC) seeking to know the rationale behind not including its representative in the team that met Union home minister Rajnath Singh in Delhi today.

JAP president Harka Bahadur Chhetri, however, ruled out pulling out of the GMCC in the larger interest of the ongoing movement for Gorkhaland. "We will write to the GMCC and ask them to explain the logic behind isolating the JAP...This is an unexpected behaviour on the part of the GMCC. They cannot pick and choose whom to invite or not in this manner. It has to make its position clear. If they don't want us, they have to say so," he said.

Chhetri said even though the GMCC had held an emergency meeting in Kalimpong yesterday where all matters of pressing concern were discussed, the Centre's invitation for talks was not discussed. "We later came to know that three parties, the CPRM, GNLF and GRNM had already known about it and were prepared to go (go to Delhi)...When our member Tashi (Sherpa, the JAP spokesman) contacted Kalyan (Gurung, the GMCC coordinator), he simply said that they would represent the GMCC. In a way, then, we were not invited," he added.

The Union home ministry's invitation for talks was first made public by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha president Bimal Gurung through social media yesterday, a few hours after the GMCC had concluded its meeting. Subsequently, senior Morcha leaders had said a GMCC team under the leadership of its coordinator would be meeting the home minister.

Chhetri said the JAP had always upheld the position of the GMCC in the context of the ongoing movement, and even the "Parliament gherao" his party had organised in Delhi early last week was done by sounding the GMCC. "We had raised the parliament gherao programme in the GMCC, and had said if all the constituent members agreed, it would not be a JAP programme, but that of the GMCC. There was no unanimity. Kalyan Dewan then said 'you go ahead with the programme, we will not join'," he said.

The Delhi event was the JAP's first unilateral programme after the formation of the GMCC in June. The Morcha, too, has acted unilaterally in the past, including the fast-unto-death by Yuva Morcha members at four different locations in the hills. The fast completed 24 days today.

The JAP president also had a word of advice for the GMCC. "Please don't compromise on the people's aspiration because it is on this one-point agenda people have come out," Chhetri said, implying that negotiation should take place only on the issue of Gorkhaland and nothing else.