The party said the state government is likely to announce elections soon after the announcement of the Lok Sabha poll results on 16 May. GJMM chief Bimal Gurung today held a ‘review meeting’ with members of his party at Malidhura on the outskirts of Darjeeling town to take stock of the post-Lok Sabha poll situation in the Hills.
The GJMM has been demanding the three-tier panchayat system, while even the tripartite agreement signed for the GTA mentions such a provision for the Hills. The Siliguri sub-division has a zilla parishad.
"The party will move the High Court if the government fails to act as per the (GTA) agreement," the party's assistant general secretary, Binoy Tamang, said. It may be mentioned that the Hills has a two-tier gram-panchayat and panchayat-samiti. The last two-tier panchayat elections here were held in 2005.
The president of the then dominant party in the Hills, Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF), Subash Ghisingh did not allow the panchayat elections to be held as the party had demanded inclusion of the areas in the Sixth Schedule.
Meanwhile, a five-member delegation of the GJMM to be led by Mr Gurung is leaving for Delhi tomorrow. Other members in the delegation include Binoy Tamang, Harka Bahadur Chhetri, Raju Pradhan and Deewaker Gurung.
Mr Tamang said the delegation will visit various places to campaign for the BJP, like in Rookee in Madhya Pradesh, Tihiri in Uttarakhand, Haridwar and possibly Haryana. The BJP has fielded a Nepali candidate in Tihiri, Mala Rajya Laxmi Saha, to contest the Lok Sabha elections there.(SNS)