Ghisingh threat stays but with a tweak He will leave with CPM, says Gurung

Kalimpong, April 13: Bimal Gurung today said GNLF president Subash Ghisingh would leave the hills after the polling day on April 18 but of his own volition, the veiled threat coming even after a police complaint against the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha chief for a similar remark three days ago.

“After April 18, Ghisingh will go on his own …. The CPM will also go (lose power in the state),” Gurung said at a rally in support of the Morcha candidate for Kalimpong, suggesting that the return of the GNLF president, a mentor-turned-foe, to the hills had been facilitated by the state government.

The Morcha chief in fact pointed out that Ghisingh was staying in the hills under the protection of hundreds of policemen, a suggestion that the state machinery facilitated his return from the three-year exile. The GNLF chief and a host of top rung leaders of the party were forced to flee the hills after a shot fired allegedly from the house of a GNLF branch committee president killed a Morcha supporter in Darjeeling.

Mirik police have already started a suo motu case against Gurung after he said at a meeting on Sunday that Ghisingh’s “visa to the hills” would expire on April 18.

While issuing the threat, the Morcha president had said lakhs of people would converge on the GNLF president’s home in Darjeeling if he did not leave the hills, a hint that he might be driven out.

Today, in almost a repeat of the earlier threat, Gurung said he could do very little if members of the Morcha’s frontal organisations converged in front of Ghisingh residence if the once exiled leader prolonged his stay.

“After April 21, members of our students wing and ex-servicemen’s union will begin their next phase of agitation demanding CBI inquiry into the Sibchu police firing. I can’t help if they land up instead in front of Ghisingh’s residence,” he said.

Rival parties, including the GNLF, ABGL and the CPM, had demanded action against Gurung for issuing the threat in Mirik. They had also drawn the attention of the Election Commission to the matter.

“The administration has taken up the issue suo motu. Police have also started going through the video recordings of the speech (in Mirik),” Darjeeling district magistrate Mohan Gandhi had earlier said. Contrary to Gurung’s claim that he was not within the purview of the model code of conduct, district magistrate Gandhi said all parties and their frontal organisations and leaders were under the ambit of the poll code.

But about today’s threat the district magistrate said: “I cannot comment on the basis of what the media tells me. But if we receive any complaints, we will definitely act on it.”

Subash Ghisingh

But all this does not seem to have perturbed the Morcha president at all as he again tore into the GNLF leader, accusing him of betraying the cause of Gorkhaland.

“Now he is saying he never asked for Gorkhaland. Why did 1,200 people sacrifice their life (during the Ghisingh-led agitation in the mid-eighties)? I will send all the 1,200 families to him. He sold them for Rs 800,” thundered Gurung, referring to the compensation paid to the next of kin of the victims. In sharp contrast to his tirade against Ghisingh, Gurung was all praise for Sikkim chief minister Pawan Chamling for getting the resolution in favour of Gorkhaland passed in the state’s Assembly.

“We will never be able to repay the debt we all owe to Chamling…After the elections, we will gather in lakhs in this very ground and give him a grand reception that no leader in the 64 years after independence has ever received,” he said.

Urging the people to vote in favour of his party candidates — Harka Bahadur Chhetri in Kalimpong, Trilok Dewan in Darjeeling and Rohit Sharma in Kurseong — the Morcha president said the first task they will take up is getting the jobs of the 6,000-odd DGHC casual employees regularised.

“This is the responsibility I am entrusting upon the three,” he said. He also said all the three candidates would be called back if they do not work in favour of the people in the Assembly.

“Harka Bahadur Chhetri should not sit smugly,” he said in jest, looking at the shyly smiling party spokesperson who was also seated on the dais, as the 6000-odd gathering roared in laughter.

Gurung also drew another round of laughter accompanied with thunderous round of claps when he, referring to Trinamul Congress president Mamata Banerjee’s promise to turn the hills into another Switzerland, said: “Mamata did want to give us Switzerland. We don’t want Switzerland or the Netherlands. We want a separate state, not separate country… But if you (Mamata) give us country, we will accept.”