Tamang dissolves her Gorkha League faction, quits politics

REZA PRADHAN, SNS, DARJEELING, 30 MARCH 2022: All India Gorkha League (AIGL) president Bharati Tamang today dissolved a faction of the party that she led, while also announcing her renunciation from politics.

Her announcement comes close on the heels of her party leaders like SP Sharma also leaving the party The AIGL will, however, remain to exist with there being another faction of the party run by Pratap Khati.

"I am making such an announcement after 10 to 11 years of my political journey. The journey of my politics started when l lost my hushand and did not even get time to dry my tears, with my leaders requesting me to take the reins of the party," said Mrs Tamang, whose husband, Madan Tamang, the then president of the AIGL, was hacked to death at Clubside here on 21 May 2010.

Mrs Tamang added that she had taken over the leadership to fulfill the dreams of her late husband.

"There were ups and down in politics, but after the 2017 agitation here, our party leaders had differences. More than the issue of the people, they were interested in their own personal benefits and posts in the party, due to which the party was divided into two," she said.

Mrs Tamang also said that though she was still yet to get justice from the Indian judicial system for her husband's murder, she felt that she had got a "form of social justice" when the statue of her husband was built at Clunside by some youths who later joined the AlGL.

She also said that many of the issues being raised by them had been sidelined by the other faction of the AIGL in the past, while alleging further that the other faction did not work for the issues of the people and neither armed them to.

"Seeing all this, I came to the decision of ending the root of the problem and dissolving the AIGL. I want to leave the different challenges with the other faction of the party" she said, while maintaining that the challenges were how to take forward the party, raise the issue of the people, stop those leaders who want person al gains from the party, along with taking up the issue of Gorkhaland with the Centre.

The AIGL was formed on 15 May 1943 by Dambar Singh Gurung, making it one of the oldest parties in the Hills and one of the parties having members in the Constituent Assembly of India. The first to be a member of the assembly was Dambar Singh himself till 1948, after which Ari Bahadur Gurung, also from the AIGL, took over. Ari Bahadur was also a member of the drafting committee and signatory to the Constitution. Among many others, the AIGL has also names of leaders like Shiv Kumar Rai and Renu Leena Subba associated with it. While Rai was known to be the first Gorkha minister in the state, Subba was a Kalimpong MLA. The AIGL was the ruling party here till the mid-eighties.