GJM rift widens on eve of talks Round 2 in Siliguri

TNN |  Sep 12, 2017, DARJEELING: The Bengal government appears to have succeeded in deepening the wedge within the GJM, the strongest pro-Gorkhaland party, and the Gorkhaland Movement Coordination Committee before it meets Hills politicians for the sec-ond round of talks to resolve the Darjeeling impasse on Tuesday.

The government chose to respond with a discreet sile-nce to the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha MLAs' plea to be invited for Tuesday's all-party meeting, as "people's rep-resentatives", after sending out an invite to the Binay Tamang-led rebel faction, addressing him as the GJM's chief coordinator, a position he held before being expelled by the faction led by GJM chief Bimal Gurung.

Official invites have also been sent out to the Gorkhaland National Liberation Front and the Jan Andolan Party, both of which have been echoing Tamang's line.

All this has succeeded in putting the GJM on the back foot and appears to have substantially reduced the leverage of the more vociferous Gorkhaland proponents even before Tuesday's talks come off in Siliguri.

Darjeeling GJM MLA Amar Singh Rai, who visited CM Mamata Banerjee's Kalighat residence on Sunday with this "elected-representative" plea, admitted as much: "We have not yet received any invite from the state government and so have cancelled our tickets for Bagdogra. But, should any invite come late, we will still attend the meeting after taking the first available flight."

"We have only one condition: all three of us — Kurseong MLA Rohit Sharma, Kalimpong MLA Sarita Rai and me — will attend the meeting together. We do not want to fan any more speculation. We sought invites as elected representatives. I don't know why we were not invited in the first place."

The GJM, party insiders said, was forced to rush the eleventh-hour request to the Bengal government after realising that the government could not invite the two most important GJM party office-bearers, party president Gurung and general secretary Roshan Giri, after slapping the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act charges on them.

So, as of now, rebel leader Tamang is set to lead a seven-member delegation to the meeting at Siliguri's Uttarkanya government secretariat. He has started adopting a shriller pitch to ensure that the charge of being pro-government does not stick to him and has started raising issues like compensation for the families of those who have died in the ongoing agitation, withdrawal of cases against agitators and release of all arrested GJM leaders and supporters.

The first signs of the growing schism within the GMCC surfaced on Monday itself, when CM Mamata Banerjee reached Siliguri. The All-India Gorkha League announced its decision to break away from the GMCC over differences in functioning. "Our central committee has decided that we should not remain a part of the GMCC as the forum has become ineffective and functions on the whims of the GJM," AIGL general secretary Pratap Khati said.

GMCC convener Kalyan Dewan could not be reached for his take on the issues despite repeated attempts.