GJM indicates willingness to contest Assembly polls

GJM forms Uttarkhand State Committee on Feb 27 in Dehradun

Sees ‘opportunity' to avenge death of 3 party supporters

(From DT)KOLKATA: Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) president Bimal Gurung on Sunday said the coming Assembly elections in West Bengal was an opportunity to “avenge” the recent death of three party supporters in police firing at Sipchu in the Dooars.

Addressing a rally at Kumani in the Kalimpong sub-division of Darjeeling district, Mr. Gurung said though the elections were not a priority for the GJM, it was an opportunity “to use the ballot” in contrast to “they [the police] having used bullets.”

His remark could be taken as indication of the GJM's intentions to participate in the coming elections not just in the Darjeeling hills, where it is a force to reckon with, but also in those parts of the Dooars in the north Bengal plains where there is sizable Gorkha population.

“What the president has reinforced at the rally is the demand for the inclusion of Gorkha-dominated areas in the Dooars and the Terai within the jurisdiction of any ‘interim' arrangement that may be under consideration for the hills to pave the way for the creation of a separate Gorkhaland State,” Harka Bahadur Chettri, senior member of the GJM's central committee, who was present at the rally, told The Hindu over telephone from the Kalimpong sub-division.

Black badges

“There can be no agreement without the inclusion of the areas in question. Mr Gurung has asserted that he will stick to this position on the matter,” he added.

Dr. Chettri said the GJM leadership had announced that the call by its student wing for a shutdown in all educational institutions in the hills from Monday had been withdrawn in the interest of students. Instead, they, along with teachers and other non-teaching staff, had been asked to wear black badges.

The GJM, which had called for a halt in the despatch of the first-flush tea crop from tea gardens in the hills from Sunday, deferred its move till March 6 with an ultimatum that the industry should announce an upward revision in the wages of tea workers by then.