Opposition members of GTA want to know status of Gorkhaland resolution

EOI, DARJEELING, JANUARY 10, 2023: The Sabashads of the opposition bench of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) on Tuesday submitted a memorandum to the council body, demanding to know the status of the resolution on Gorkhaland that had been passed in the GTA Sabha last year.

Sabashads Binoy Tamang and Ajoy Edwards who is the Hamro Party president along with seven others reached Lalkothi, the GTA headquarters, to submit the memorandum to the GTA chief executive regarding this matter along with other issues.

Chief Executive Officer of GTA Anit  Thapa, however, was not present at Lal Kothi nor other top officials of the GTA. Tamang said it was unfortunate no one was present even though they had come at Lalkothi around noon, which was office hours.

“On September 19, 2022,the second GTA Sabha general meeting was held. In that meeting the GTA chief executive had kept the demand of Gorkhaland as the number one agenda and a resolution was also adopted. We had then demanded that the resolution should be sent to the Prime Minister, the Union home Minister and the West Bengal Chief Minister along with BJP national president J.P Nadda. 

This had also been written in the proceedings of the meeting held then. 

Today we wanted to know if the resolution adopted had been sent to these people or not,” said Tamang while maintaining that they have been moving forward with the demand of Gorkhaland. According to Tamang in the GTA meeting 55 agenda and bills were placed but the proceedings of the meeting only showing 33 agenda in it along with the five agenda they had raised. 

“We wanted to also know the status of the other agenda raised in the meeting then and if they had been taken up with the related departments of the State Government or not and if they were under process,” said, Tamang adding that this was mentioned in the memorandum submitted to the GTA on Tuesday. The memorandum also demanded the holding a meeting of the GTA as early as possible. 

“As per the GTA Act, 2011, the GTA shall meet for the conduct of business at least once in every three months. The last GTA Sabha was held on September 19, 2022. More than three months have already elapsing since then.

In accordance with the GTA Act, we would like to request to call the third GTA Sabha as early as possible,” said Tamang. The other point raised during the day was that according to the GTA Act the Members of Parliament, the Members of Legislative Assembly and the chairpersons of the municipalities be made the ex-officio members of the GTA. The memorandum asked for clarification if the GTA had invited them for the GTA Sabha that would come up. “The people want to know the financial accounts of the GTA in 2020-21 along with 2021-22 and 2022-23. We want the details of the accounts to be made public, the issue which we had raised in the GTA Sabha. This has not been done as yet. Now the Annual Budget for 2023-24 is coming up which needs to be prepared and sent to Kolkata. The people should know what type of Budget has been sent,” said Tamang. Edwards said: “I was happy that a resolution for Gorkhaland had been passed in the GTA Sabha. We had requested the resolution be sent to the Union government along with the State but till now we know nothing about what has happened. We had wanted a high committee delegation to go to Delhi regarding this matter. This is a serious issue for us and should not be taken lightly.”Edwards said that Thapa talked about improving the system and he should also follow the system like calling a GTA Sabha meeting after every three months in accordance with the legal provision.