JOIN USGNLF leader Ghising dead
Subash Ghising, the man who brought the Gorkha agitation to demand separate statehood to the forefront of the political arena, died at a hospital in Delhi on Thursday.
Ghising was the life-term president of the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF). He was 78.
Although Ghising lost much of his political relevance since his close aide Bimal Gurung overthrew him and floated the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) in 2008, he continued to remain a prominent figure in the politics of the Darjeeling hills and the Gorkhaland movement.
Ghising founded the GNLF in 1980, which spearheaded a prolonged and violent agitation in the mid-1980s that led to the formation of the semi-autonomous Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC). Ghising was chairman of the Council from 1988 to 2008, till the emergence of Gurung, who refreshed the demand for a separate Gorkhaland.
The Gorkhaland movement grew from the demand of ethnic Gorkhas living in Darjeeling district of West Bengal for a separate state. The GNLF led the movement, which disrupted the area with massive violence between 1986 and 1988.
Ghising resigned from the chairmanship of DGHC in March 2008 after the GNLF lost much of its support base and cadres to GJM. Ghising came out of political hibernation in 2011, before the crucial Assembly polls, which brought Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress to power.
GNLF, however, lost all the three constituencies under Darjeeling district. Senior GNLF functionaries said Ghising died of multi-organ failure at Gangaram hospital in Delhi following prolonged illness.
His body will be flown to Kolkata on Saturday and then taken to Bagdogra.