Break before tigers roam - CM in North bengal, stage set for Darjeeling deal today

Siliguri, July 17: Mamata Banerjee today indulged herself in a very Bengali way, spending two hours sightseeing in the Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary as she arrived here to oversee the signing of a hill peace pact tomorrow.

Perhaps she just wanted a break after a hectic first eight weeks as chief minister, during which she has tried to bell several cats such as Singur, the Maoists and the restive hills.

But there was one big cat she wasn’t taking any chances with this evening.

“Ebaar bari jai, bagh aashbe, kheye nebe (let’s go home now, else the tiger will come and eat us),” she announced loudly after climbing down from a watchtower towards the end of her unscheduled forest tour.

“Jano to, oder disturb korle kheye nay (Don’t you know, they gobble up anyone who disturbs them),” she added to guffaws from the forest staff before returning to the Sukna forest bungalow to spend the night. No tiger has been sighted there recently. Elephants, a tourist favourite, too, steered clear of the chief minister’s path.

Mamata’s aides wouldn’t hazard a guess whether the forest venture was her way of unwinding before tomorrow’s pact, or if it was an attempt to connect with local people on the eve of offering a new deal for north Bengal.

“She has been working without a break for so many years. For the past eight weeks, she has been putting in nearly 9-10 hours every day. At least she had some fresh air in the forest,” an aide said.

Mamata had touched down at Bagdogra airport around 3pm and driven to the Sukna forest bungalow, about 7-8km from Siliguri and located at the edge of the sanctuary. Around 4.30, she set off on the sightseeing trip and reached the watchtower at Gulma forest beat camp 1/4 around 5.40pm, Mukul Roy in tow.

She took the wooden stairs to the top of the tower and soaked in the greenery and the view of the distant hills for 20 minutes.

A three-member Gorkha Janmukti Morcha team called on Mamata around 9pm, party president Bimal Gurung handing her sweets on the occasion of his 47th birthday. “It was a courtesy call. The people of the hills are very happy,” Gurung told reporters.

Morcha sources said Gurung and Mamata discussed the final draft of tomorrow’s tripartite deal on the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), to be signed in the presence of Union home minister P. Chidambaram.

With the inking of the pact, billed as the most significant attempt at peace in the hills since the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council was formed in 1988, Mamata will be fulfilling one of her key election promises. While her plan to fast-track land return in Singur is in the courts, her peace bid in Jungle Mahal awaits Maoist endorsement.

~TT