GNLF chief Subash Ghisingh to lead revival campaign

Darjeeling, Jan. 15.TT: The GNLF, in political hibernation since the Assembly elections, is planning a comeback in the hills with a campaign for Sixth Schedule status for the hills to be kicked off by party chief Subash Ghisingh next month.

The campaign will start with Mirik, where the last public meeting of the GNLF was held ahead of the Assembly polls. “Our party has decided to start a campaign for Sixth Schedule status for the hills. We will hold public meetings across the region, starting with one at Mirik in February. Our party president, Subash Ghisingh, will be there,” said Arjun Rai, the convener of the GNLF’s Mirik area.

Rai said the date of the meeting would be announced by Ghisingh, who stays in Jalpaiguri since he was hounded out of the hills in 2008 by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha.

Indications of the GNLF’s revival efforts were evident when Rai held a meeting with 41 village chiefs of the party in Mirik yesterday to work out the campaign strategy.

The GNLF has decided not to attack the Morcha on the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration but only to talk about its demand.

“We have nothing to do with the GTA. Our issue is the implementation of the Sixth Schedule status and both the Centre and the state must honour the memorandum of settlement they had signed with the GNLF to accord the special status to the hills on December 6, 2005,” said Rai.

Ghisingh, whose writ no longer runs in the hills, had paid a heavy price when he accepted a proposal to confer the Sixth Schedule status on the hills.

The Centre, the state and Ghisingh’s GNLF had signed a memorandum of settlement, which could not be implemented because of opposition in the hills.

The resultant vacuum had helped Morcha’s Bimal Gurung undermine Ghisingh’s authority and project himself as an alternative power.

The GNLF’s decision to solely concentrate on Sixth Schedule is probably aimed at ensuring a congenial atmosphere in the hills so that the party can hold public meetings freely, instead of going in for a direct confrontation with the Morcha.

The last major public meeting of the GNLF was on April 9 in Mirik to drum up support for the party candidates who had contested the three hill Assembly seats. Ghisingh had addressed the meeting, coming back to the hills a day before after a gap of three years.

The GNLF candidates occupied the second spot in Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong, polling a cumulative vote of around 40,000. The deposits of all the three were forfeited. Soon after the election results were announced and following a clash between the GNLF and the Morcha supporters in Sonada on May 16, Ghisingh had quietly slipped out of the hills under the cover of darkness.

Since then, Ghisingh has been remaining low even though GNLF supporters did organise a “picnic like gathering” in Darjeeling and Mirik on December 6 to commemorate the signing of the Sixth Schedule settlement.

Observers believe that Ghisingh has chosen Mirik as the venue for his comeback rally as he hails from that area. “The GNLF probably thinks that with the delay in implementing the GTA, it is time to start the groundwork to revive the party,” said a political observer.

Morcha general secretary Roshan Giri has refused to read much into the GNLF plan. “We are not concerned about the meeting. It is insignificant for us as the hill people have time and again rejected the Sixth Schedule.”