Gorkhaland Territorial Administration: GJM wants GTA in place faster

In what is being viewed as a pressure tactic by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha on the Bengal Government to extract as much as it can, party general secretary Roshan Giri on Saturday met Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee with a demand to declare Darjeeling a backward region besides speeding up the process of implementation of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration accord.

A GTA team led by Giri and party leader HB Chetri who met the Chief Minister and Chief Secretary Samar Ghosh with their demands said there was intense pressure from the party’s youth wing to start an agitation for a separate State afresh “and we have not yet held a meeting to decide on that”, adding the GJM leadership expected quick implementation of the GTA accord by the Government to show its results to the people.

“We want this accord to be implemented quickly” he said. The leader reportedly complained to the Chief Minister about the delay on the part of the Government to declare Darjeeling a backward region “as a result of which we are being deprived of necessary funds to develop the interior areas of the region.”

The leader also urged the Chief Minister to speed up the process of delimitation of the areas in Dooars that could be transferred to GTA. Currently, a high-powered committee is looking into the matter and could take more than the stipulated three months to earmark the Gorkha-majority areas in the plains to be added to the GTA. The people of the plains and Doors, including the adivasis and the Bengalis, are opposing the idea of including the area --- about 400 moujas --- into the GTA.

As for the GTA Bill which was signed by the Chief Minister and Giri but was yet to get the Presidential assent and the inclusion of the moujas into the GTA more time would be required, the Chief Minister is known to have told the GJM leadership. In that case an additional three-month period could be given to the committee to decide on the areas to be included in the GTA. An election to the GTA council could only be held after the area from the Dooars and the nearby plains are added to the proposed body.

On whether a movement for a separate State could gain strength again, Giri said everything depended on the Government, adding “it should be noticed that the word Gorkhaland had not been dropped from the GTA.”

Meanwhile, sources quoting the Chief Minister said that the Government had made it clear to the GJM leadership that it would give nothing to the party in addition to what had been mentioned in the GTA accord.

The warm relations between the two sides had been getting colder in the past few weeks with the GJM raising the Gorkhaland bogey all over again. In fact, the party was going to hold a rally in Siliguri for a separate State on February 12.

-dailypioneer