Rajnath Singh asks Union home secy to call meeting to discuss Darjeeling issues

Pramod Giri, HT, 26 September 2017: One hundred and four days after the indefinite shutdown in Darjeeling, Union home minister Rajnath Singh has asked the home secretary to convene a meeting to discuss all related issues.

The hills of north Bengal have remained crippled under a bandh that started on June 15 after police raided an office of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) and the residence of its chief Bimal Gurung.

“I have asked the home secretary to convene an official level meeting in the home ministry within a fortnight to discuss all related issues. I also appeal to the GJM and its leader Bimal Gurung to withdraw the ongoing bandh and to help create a conducive atmosphere for allowing normalcy to return to the area, particularly in view of the festive season,” said Singh in a statement issued on Tuesday evening.

The statement can eventually pave the way for normalcy to be restored in the hills where everything from markets to schools, business establishments to entertainment zones have remained closed causing untold misery to the people.

“Eleven precious lives have been lost so far. several people have been injured... I have been pained immensely by what has happened in Darjeeling hills,” read Singh’s statement.

Various hill parties have been demanding a tripartite meeting and urged chief minister Mamata Banerjee to work towards one. They demanded a separate state of Gorkhaland and said the Centre should immediately start discussions.

Though Singh’s statement did not mention whether it would be a tripartite meeting, it was clear that the meeting would be an official one. “In a democracy, dialogue is the only way out to resolve any problem,” said the Union home minister.

Earlier, the hill party leaders met Singh thrice at his residence in Delhi. At a meeting on August 13, Singh told the agitators to speak to the Bengal chief minister, who vowed not to allow another partition of Bengal. GJM, the largest political party in the hills that is also an ally of the NDA, viewed this as a betrayal of the Gorkha cause.

Incidentally, Gurung and a few senior leaders of GJM are on the run ever since they were charged with UA(P)A sections in a few cases related to explosion of improvised bombs in Darjeeling.

The Criminal Investigations Department of the Bengal police arrested three GJM leaders, D K Pradhan, PT Ola and Trilokchand Roka, who were a part of a delegation that met the Union home minister a couple of times.

There have been a couple of largely unsuccessful bipartite meetings between the agitators and chief minister Mamata Banerjee. She assured the agitators that the government would explore whether it was possible to call a tripartite meeting to discuss the impasse.