Asok Bhattacharya alleged that Mamata had inspired GJMM and ABAVP leaders to go for the GATA

SILIGURI, 1 NOV: Former state urban development and municipal affairs minister, Mr Asok Bhattacharya, today alleged that chief minister Miss Mamata Banerjee had inspired GJMM president Mr Bimal Gurung and a section of ABAVP leaders to go for the Gorkhaland and Adivasi Territorial Administration (GATA).
“We are invincibly convinced that the chief minister has masterminded the move from behind to ensure trouble free inclusion of the contentious lands in the Terai-Dooars region into the geographical jurisdiction of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration,” he said in Siliguri today.
Expressing concern over the new understanding involving the GJMM and ABAVP, Mr Bhattacharya said that the conspicuous silence on the part of the chief minister had deepened the mystery about the fount of the dangerous move.
“We are apprehending that the move will result in a fresh spell of inter-ethnic unrest in ethnically-volatile north Bengal. The fissiparous forces active in the region in the form of the Kamtapur and Suryapur movements will definitely get a boost as a result of the recent move. The demands for carving several states out of the present territory of West Bengal will be raised with renewed vigour to the detriment of the territorial integrity of the state,” the CPI-M leader warned.  
“We are of the view that the GATA move had been envisaged during the chief minister’s recent visit to the Hills and the Dooars. The north Bengal development affairs minister, Mr Gautam Deb, might have played an instrumental role in the matter,” he said.
Accusing the state government of “dangerously appeasing: the GJMM, Mr Bhattacharya said that the refusal of the chief minister to visit the accident spot in Bijanbari, while she was in Darjeeling, had showed up her desperation to keep the GJMM in good humour at all costs.