3 who made deal work - How the trio negotiated the GTA draft

From top: Samar Ghosh, G.D. Gautama and Anil Verma

Calcutta, July 21: Three senior bureaucrats played a pivotal role in paving the way for the landmark agreement to form the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration that has ended the hill impasse for now and helped Mamata Banerjee fulfil her promise of solving the problem within three months of coming to power.

The chief minister, who on her first day at Writers’ had publicly rued the lack of “good” IAS officers in Bengal, would conceivably be thankful to chief secretary Samar Ghosh, home secretary G.D. Gautama and DGHC administrator Anil Verma for their contribution in resolving the hill crisis.

Days after her government was sworn in on May 20, Mamata had told Ghosh and Gautama, both Bengal-cadre IAS officers of the 1977 batch, that she wanted a solution to the Darjeeling issue as soon as possible.

Verma, an IAS officer of the 1989 batch with extensive experience in dealing with the hill impasse, was brought on board for counsel soon after.

Since early June, the three bureaucrats had been negotiating on Mamata’s behalf with the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha the terms and conditions for the formation of the GTA. The Centre, state government and the Morcha signed the agreement at Pintail Village, near Siliguri, on Monday.

Writers’ sources told The Telegraph how the three officers “toiled for hours” during meetings with Morcha delegations led by general secretary Roshan Giri since June to find a way out of the four-year-old impasse.

“The officers spent hours with the Morcha on June 6 and 7 trying to keep the statehood demand out of the agreement’s equation,” a government official said. “Morcha leaders met the chief minister each time they came to Writers’ but they were not more than courtesy calls. She made it clear that the discussions would have to take place at the official level, with the bureaucrats,” he added.

According to sources, the “most difficult ask” for the trio was to get the Morcha to agree with the government on the “extremely sensitive issue” of territory of the proposed set-up. Before Mamata announced on June 7 that the Darjeeling problem had been “solved”, the bureaucrats spent four hours negotiating the territory issue.

“That was the biggest challenge and they manoeuvred the talks well. After four hours, they managed to make the Morcha agree to the formation of a nine-member committee to look into the party’s demand that the Gorkha-dominated areas of the Dooars, the Terai and Siliguri be included under the GTA’s jurisdiction,” a source said.

“The Morcha was given a take-it-or-leave-it kind of deal. It had to accept it as time was running out for (party chief) Bimal Gurung and other Morcha leaders,” he added.

Sources said the Morcha was “adamant” on three other issues — direct nomination to the new hill authority, transfer of the tauzi department that keeps land records of tea gardens to the arrangement and some legislative powers.

“Samarbabu made it clear to the Morcha that direct elections to select GTA members would have to be held. It was non-negotiable. But the Morcha initially refused to budge from its demand that the new authority be given some legislative powers and the tauzi department be transferred to it,” the source said.

Finally, on July 8, the government agreed to transfer the tauzi department to the GTA. The demand for legislative powers was, however, ruled out. “That is the day the Morcha agreed to sign the tripartite agreement after over a month and a half of hard bargaining,” a senior official said. “Gautama drafted the agreement that day itself after consulting the chief secretary and Verma. The draft was approved by the chief minister before the Morcha was allowed to see it,” he added.

Senior government officials said the Darjeeling impasse had continued for so long because of the Left Front regime’s “reluctance” to concede any ground to the Morcha. “Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and (former municipal affairs minister) Asok Bhattacharya were adamant against giving the Morcha any leeway. The Left Front government had insisted on accommodating all voices from the hills, including those of the GNLF and the ABGL, in the tripartite agreement,” an official said.

The Writers’ sources said two previous chief secretaries, Asok Mohan Chakrabarti and Ardhendu Sen, “had not been able to take sufficient initiative” to resolve the crisis. “Both had played a rather passive role in the talks during the Left regime,” a source said.

~TT