Darjeeling, May 20: Bimal Gurung
has decided to camp in Delhi till the swearing-in ceremony of Narendra
Modi as the prime minister in an effort to strengthen ties with the NDA.
Gorkha Janmukti
Morcha chief Gurung along with party general secretary Roshan Giri and
senior leaders Binay Tamang, Jyoti Kumar Rai and Swaraj Thapa today
attended a meeting of the NDA at the central hall in Parliament.
Today, Gurung
wrote in his Faceook post: “The GJM delegation will camp in Delhi till
the oath taking of Shri Narendra Modi as prime minister on May 26.”
Morcha sources
said Gurung wants to ensure that Morcha’s bond with the NDA is cemented.
“With the Morcha severing ties with Mamata Banerjee, Gurung is of the
opinion that it will need the full backing of the NDA to stand against
the state,” a senior Morcha leader said. “The party leadership thinks
even though the party had backed BJP’s Jaswant Singh in 2009 and ensured
his victory by a record margin, Morcha could not build strong relations
with senior BJP leaders. It is looking to change that. That is the
reason for Morcha leaders’ stay in Delhi.”
Singh had won by over 2 lakh votes. This time, Ahluwalia won by about 1.9 lakh votes.
Yesterday, Gurung
had directed the three Morcha MLAs — Trilok Dewan from Darjeeling, Harka
Bahadur Chhetri from Kalimpong and Kurseong’s Rohit Sharma — to sit on
the Opposition benches. Since 2011, the MLAs have been sitting on the
treasury benches.
Gurung’s post
read: “The GJM delegation will also meet prominent NDA leaders in the
days to come including Shri Narendra Modi Ji and apprise him about
Gorkhaland and the political situation in Darjeeling Hills.”
Giri said: “We
were to meet Narendra Modiji today but he had to leave for Gujarat. We
will meet other senior leaders in the next few days. We met Nitin
Gadkari and Arun Jatley. It was more of a courtesy call.”(The Telegraph)