Accepting refugee patta will equate tea garden dwellers with Bangladeshis and Rohingyas, says Darjeeling MP

YOWAN MOTHAY, EOI, KALIMPONG, AUGUST 20, 2023 : Once again the West Bengal government has re- introduced its “sinister policy” of granting only five decimal “refugee patta” to the tea garden workers, BJP M.P. of Darjeeling Raju Bista said on Saturday. 

According to Bista,”this five decimal ‘homestead patta’ that the West Bengal Government wants to forcefully impose on the tea garden workers is the policy they have adopted through the 'Nijo Ghar Nijo Bhumi prokolpo.’ 

Under this scheme a ‘homestead patta’ is given to refugees or landless people. Therefore, this 'Nijo Ghar Nijo Bhumi prokolpo’ of five decimal ‘homestead patta’ is not only useless, but also a sinister conspiracy against the people of our Darjeeling hills, Terai and Dooars region. On one hand Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha leaders were boasting that this five decimal refugee patta for the tea garden workers was their achievement, and they were forcing the people to accept this patta, Bista said. 

However, after protests from various quarters across the region, BGPM chief Anit Thapa himself wrote a letter to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on August 11, pleading with her to grant agricultural land rights (pattas) to the tea garden workers. 

“If this five decimal patta is as good as the BGPM and Trinamool Congress hill leaders are claiming it is to be, then why write an additional letter asking for additional patta,” asked Bista. 

“The fact of the matter is that, the BGPM and Trinamool hill leaders do not have any thinking capacity or vision of their own,” he said. 

“They have outsourced their thinking process to Kolkata, and they merely regurgitate what Kolkata tells them to. Because of all this, it has now become apparent that those running the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration have no clue as to how or why this five decimal refugee patta is so dangerous for our region and people,” Bista said. 

“As I have said on numerous occasions earlier, our people are neither homeless, nor are we landless. The tea garden families have been living in these lands much before the British usurped their lands and converted them to tea gardens. We are only seeking their right to these ancestral lands of the tea workers,”Bista said. 

“If the people accept refugee patta today, like illegal Bangaldeshis or Rohingys, we will be equated with them,” Bista argued. 

“By forcing the people from Darjeeling hills, Terai and Dooars to accept this refugee patta, WB Govt is trying to kill the aspirations of our region and people. By forcing the people to accept refugee patta given by Kolkata, BGPM leaders are knowingly jeopardizing the present and future of our region and people. We shouldn’t allow them to sell out our future this way.”