Leaders are always under political pressure: Gurung

SILIGURI: GJM chief Bimal Gurung on Tuesday tried to placate his supporters in the Hills that he has not dropped the demand for a separate Gorkhaland state. But why did Gurung sit silent when the chief minister asserted during the signing of the Hill accord on Monday that Darjeeling was the "heart of Bengal"? "Leaders are always under political pressure. She (Mamata) was also under political pressure to say Bengal would not be divided. Every individual has the right to say no or yes," said the GJM leader. Calling the Bengal chief minister as a mother of the people, the GJM president professed "non-violence" as their future course. "She is our mother and we are her children. This is why we have to win her over with love," he said.
Gurung criticized the CPM for trying to instigate ethnic disharmony between the plains and Hills for vested interests. "GTA was born during the seventh round of tripartite meeting and the CPM government had given its consent. At that time it was called Gorkha Autonomous Authority (GAA). But the important thing is that the CPM did not have the heart to give us anything that the Trinamool Congress has," the GJM president said.
Unlike Monday, Siliguri town defied the bandh call of Bengali outfits and went to work.
The GJM president is not in a hurry to extract the most out of this agreement in a day. Instead, he is willing to give the chief minister a long rope unlike his detractors in the Hills who want immediate results. "We have to let her (Mamata) work because one cannot repair the wrongs of 34 years in an instant. People should also have patience as the process for implementing the GTA will take some time but we must show the government that we (Gorkhas) can run an administration," Gurung said.
~TOI