GTA members to attend office from Tuesday

After three months of a “stand-off” with the state government, elected members of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration from the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha have agreed to start attending office from Tuesday, October 22.

The 45 sabhasads from the GJM had refrained from attending office after GJM president Bimal Gurung submitted his resignation from the GTA chief executive post on July 30 to start a fresh statehood agitation.

The state government responded by getting 12 GTA elected sabhasads, including Binay Tamang arrested, on charges of involvement in the 41-day agitation in the month of August.

The GJM president had a set a condition that all arrested GJM leaders including elected GTA members should be released unconditionally if the GTA was to function. The first GTA meeting to elect a new chief executive on September 4 failed to appoint one as all the elected members refused to attend the meeting.

However, in the second meeting on September 27, all the 33 sabhasads attended the meeting and elected Tamang as the new incumbent. But Tamang, who is also the GJM assistant secretary, has not been released from custody in spite of several bail applications.

Amid such a backdrop, 14 GTA executive members today convened a meeting and empowered Col (Retd) Ramesh Allay as the deputy chief executive to run the administrative body until the time Tamang is released.

“We have decided that Col Allay, the deputy chief executive, will run the GTA till the newly elected chief executive is released. The GTA sabhasads will start attending office from Tuesday,” said Jyoti Kumar Rai, one of the executive members and the GJM assistant secretary, after the meeting held at the GTA Sabha in Gorkha Ranga Manch, Darjeeling.

The decision to empower Allay to run the GTA and the issue of disbursal of full salaries for the month of August (strike period), deducted by the state government, will also be passed in a resolution to be taken on Tuesday.

It may be mentioned here that the GJM president had said during the agitation he would reject the GTA “at an appropriate time”. Although Gurung resigned, he did not let the other elected members put in their papers as the GJM was apprehensive the state government would elect its own candidates to the GTA, which would have been politically detrimental for the party.

The GTA is presently being run by the principal secretary in the absence of the elected members. For more than a month, a number of development works for the hills were suspended causing great inconvenience to the general public.

The GJM leadership has even taken a reconciliatory stand by stating party leaders will meet chief minister Mamata Banerjee in Darjeeling on October 24. This is a turnaround from the earlier stand of not holding any dialogues with the state government.

The hill unit of the TMC is scheduled to hold a convention on October 23 and Banerjee will visit Darjeeling the following day to interact with party supporters and also meet with district administration officials to take stock of the current situation here.(EOIC)