Jury out on impact of Mamata board card on hills - Binay mum on GTA role

Security personnel stand on guard in Darjeeling on Wednesday

TT, Calcutta, Sept. 20: Mamata Banerjee's decision to form a board of administrators for the GTA with Binay Tamang at its helm has landed both factions of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha in a quandary as it can't be immediately gauged to whose advantage the move will ultimately work.

Observers said Tamang, the "expelled" Morcha leader, had always wanted his association with the Bengal government to be tacit.

"Tamang had been espousing the Gorkhaland cause to boost his new political innings in the hills. He took every step to cash in on Morcha president Bimal Gurung's alleged lack of foresight and strategy to get the statehood. However, with the state government appointing him as the chairman of the board of administrators to run the GTA, along with his close associate Anit Thapa, Tamang knows he will have to withstand a fresh backlash, given the strong sentiment for Gorkhaland in the hills,' said an observer.

Tamang was reserved in his comment today. "I have not seen the notification and I cannot make any comment based on media inputs. I had not talked about the GTA (with the state)," he said.

But the Gurung lobby of the Morcha was quick to react.

Binita Roka, the spokesperson for the Morcha, said: "The Centre was preparing to start tripartite talks on the statehood with Gurung but the Bengal government wanted to stop it and has hence put these people on the GTA. The state government's plan is to hold talks on the GTA among the Centre, the state and GTA and not on Gorkhaland."

The observers believe Mamata's decision to appoint Binay and Anit to the GTA was to ensure their participation in the tripartite talks.

Another leader of the Gurung lobby said: "Tamang's induction to the GTA board of administrators is the end of his political career."

As of now, the observers said, Gurung seems to have an upper-hand in the hill politics following the chief minister's announcement. However, they said if Tamang and Thapa could withstand the present backlash, they could further corner Gurung in future.

"If the duo can influence the developments in the hills for the next one year and if the Centre yields to Bengal's pressure and ignores the Gurung camp, the political landscape might become different. The biggest challenge for the rebel duo would be to ensure that the tripartite talks are held on the Gorkhaland demand and not the GTA," said the observer.

"If Tamang and Thapa can hold talks on the statehood, despite representing the GTA, they could pacify their supporters. And with the state determined to stop Gurung from coming out in the public, the Morcha president could lose ground after sometime. It would be the biggest fear in Gurung's mind at this moment," he added.

The observer then concluded: "The situation is fluid in the hills now and so, it cannot be predicted in which direction the wind will blow."

The GNLF, which had backed Trinamul in the last Parliament and Assembly elections, distanced itself from Mamata's decision.

Mann Ghisingh, the GNLF president, was included in the eight-member board today.

"Our president Ghisingh was not consulted before the announcement. The GNLF has already filed a case (in 2012) against the constitutional status of the GTA and there is no way of getting into the GTA. We condemn the unilateral decision and will not accept it," Neeraj Zimba, the GNLF spokesperson, said.

The Darjeeling MLA, Amar Singh Rai, the only hill MLA to be included in the board, said: "I am not aware of the details of the announcement."

The newly formed National Gorkhaland Committee has, too, opposed the move. "The NGC is committed to building and strengthening the movement for Gorkhaland. We will continue our work without getting distracted by these developments," Munish Tamang, the committee's convener, said.

Harka Bahadur Chhetri, the president of the Jana Andolan Party, said the government appeared to have acted in haste in forming the GTA board that could actually aggravate the present situation in the hills.

Commenting on the board, Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh said: "The chief minister is unnecessarily making things complicated for the hills. Gurung is the supreme leader in the hills and by implicating him in false cases, she is making the situation more complicated."