Gurung claims Swami Gorkhaland promise The BJP had won the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat for three consecutive terms in 2009, 2014 and 2019

Vivek Chhetri, TT, 18 February 2020, Darjeeling: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha’s Bimal Gurung camp has claimed BJP leader Subramanian Swamy promised that he would demand creation of “Union territory of Gorkhaland” in Parliament soon and “will not give up till it happens”.

A statement issued by Roshan Giri, the general secretary of the Gurung faction, said working president Lopsang Lama and another party leader Urmila Rumba had called on Swamy in New Delhi on Monday.

“The team thanked Swamy for raising the Gorkhaland issue,” the statement reads.

On February 11, Swamy had tweeted: “...Gorkhaland is top priority. Must make it a Union Territory as promised.”

Giri’s statement is accompanied by a video of the team’s interaction with Swamy where the BJP leader is clearly heard saying: “I told you, I am committed. It will be Union Territory of Gorkhaland and I will not give up till it happens”.

Earlier in the video, Swamy said: “We may have a function also in Darjeeling, say 1 May, after I have raised the matter in Parliament.”

When the person recording the video asks Swami whether the issue he will raise in Parliament will be Gorkhaland, Swamy replies: “Obviously, why should I make compromise. I have already said that Gorkhaland as a separate Union Territory is a demand that we have promised you and we have got three Lok Sabha seats out of you.”

The BJP had won the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat for three consecutive terms in 2009, 2014 and 2019.

Later during the day, Swamy also tweeted the delegation’s visit. “In 2019 they proposed my name but I had 3years in RS left so said no,” he tweeted.

He seemed to be implying that the BJP offered him a ticket to contest from the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat in 2019.

During his interaction with the leaders of the Gurung camp, Swamy also gave an impression he had played a pivotal role in the creation of a separate state of Uttarkhand.

Asked how long it might take to fulfil the Gorkhaland demand, Swamy said: “How can I say, baba. I will not let go. Uttarkhand people, when I took up their case, they used to ask me the same thing. Mulayam Singh (the then chief minister of Uttar Pradesh) said I will never, we made him agree.”

Gorkha Rastriya Congress chief coordinator Subodh Pakhrin told The Telegraph that a four-member delegation of the organisation had met Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankar at Raj Bhavan in Calcutta on February 12.

“We told the governor that a white paper issued by the Bengal government in 1986 states that Darjeeling was part of Sikkim and a pragmatic permanent political solution was Darjeeling’s merger with Sikkim,” said Pakhrin

The GRC also supports Citizenship (Amendment) Act. “The governor was aware of our stand on the CAA. He asked us to meet him when he will be in Darjeeling in April or May,” said Pakhrin.