JOIN USUpset over a high-power committee’s report on additional areas to be included into the proposed Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) in northern West Bengal, the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha Saturday threatened to launch a protest agitation.
Going a step further, a faction of a tribal outfit active in the Dooars (foothills of the Himalayas) region of north Bengal said the demand for a “Gorkhaland state” would be revived. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee urged the GJM to accept the report.
“During the GTA agreement it was decided that all the parties - the state and the central governments and GJM - will abide by whatever recommendations the high-powered committee makes,” Banerjee told the media.
“I, therefore, urge all to abide by its decisions. There is no scope for misunderstanding,” she said. The 10-member committee, headed by Justice (retd.) Shyamal Kumar Sen, Friday night submitted the report which was read out to reporters by Chief Secretary Samar Ghosh Saturday.
The committee was set up July 29 last year after the GJM demanded 398 additional mouzas (area less than a sub-division) spread over Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri districts to be included in the GTA — a new hill council that would run the administration in Darjeeling area.
It is armed with more powers than its predecessor, the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC), formed in the 1980s.
The committee, which considered parameters such as homogeneity (whether over 50 percent of the mouza’s population was Gorkha), geographical contiguity, compactness and ground reality, said only two mouzas in Jalpaiguri and three in Darjeeling fulfilled all the criteria for being part of the GTA. Ghosh said the government has not finalised its stand on the report. “I’ve come to merely brief you on the report’s contents,” he said.
He said though members of the GJM and the state government were members of the panel, it had been decided that they would not be part of the committee’s decision-making process which was left to Justice Sen.
The GJM was left fuming after knowing contents of the report.“The recommendation is a farce. We do not accept this. The people of (Darjeeling Hills) are with us. We will go on a stir. We were hoping to get over 150 mouzas,” GJM general secretary Roshan Giri said.