The immediate casualty would be the nomination of John Barla, the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad breakaway leader, whose name was doing the rounds in Morcha circles.
But a senior Trinamul leader in Siliguri said Mamata’s move was a message to Gurung that he should not seek to legitimise his Gorkhaland movement in the Dooars and Terai by nominating leaders from there to the Sabha.
Gurung and Roshan Giri, who travelled to Calcutta yesterday, were told about the three names Mamata wants to nominate when they met the chief minister in Writers’ Buildings.
Giri, speaking over the phone from Calcutta today, admitted that accommodating Barla would now become difficult as the Morcha had already nominated two persons from the hills — Nari Morcha leader Sarita Rai and aged party worker Birkhu Bhusal. There can be only five nominated members to the Sabha.
“The Trinamul is nominating three members and we are not being able to accommodate John Barla. We are looking at various options and let us see what happens next,” Giri said today.
The senior Trinamul leader in Siliguri, when asked why the ruling party had done this, said: “The government and our party wanted to send a clear message that none of the nominated members of the GTA should come from outside the GTA area.”
As of now, only five mouzas in the Dooars and Terai have been recommended for inclusion in the GTA. Barla’s faction wants the entire area to be in the GTA.
The Trinamul leader said: “If John Barla is included as a nominated member, it would, in some way or the other, give a legitimacy to their (the Morcha’s) demand of including areas in the Terai and Dooars in the GTA.”
He said the state government has tried to “drive home the point that the nominated members should be from the GTA area, which is why the three names proposed from our side are of residents living in the three hill sub-divisions. The party has consciously avoided naming any Trinamul leader from Siliguri, Terai or Dooars for the nomination.”
The three persons that Mamata has named are Durga Kharel, a Darjeeling-based lawyer as a well as a singer and lyricist, Satish Kumar Thing, a teacher of Samsung Higher Secondary School, and Tika Khati, from the Schedule Caste community and a former administrative officer who recently joined Trinamul.
On July 27, on Martyrs’ Day at Darjeeling Gymkhana Club, Gurung had announced the name of Bhusal, from the SC community, and Rai as two of the nominated councillors to the GTA.
At that time, he had said: “The rest of the three nominated members will be from the Dooars and the Terai.”
But on July 30, a buzz rose that Barla could be nominated to the Sabha. Morcha leaders in the Terai and Dooars said they had no objection to Barla’s nomnation.
If Barla was despondent today, he did not show it.
“It was the Morcha leaders, and particularly party president Bimal Gurung, who had placed the proposal before the state government to include me in the GTA…. I have not yet got any formal intimation from him that Mamata Banerjee has refused to include me.” he said.
“I have nothing much to comment and would prefer to wait for the decision to be taken by Bimal Gurung and his party. The responsibility is entirely theirs.”
Kharel, one of the Trinamul’s nominees, today confirmed that he had been sounded out by the party. “Party leaders sought my permission for nominations recently. Even yesterday, a senior administrative official confirmed my name along with those of Khat and Thing,” he said. The other two said they had not been informed about their nomination by Trinamul yet.
The GTA Act states that the GTA Sabha shall consist of 45 elected members and five members “to be nominated by the governor to give representation to members of SC, ST, women and minority communities”.
When Gurung nominated Bhusal and rai, it was expected by people in the hills that the other three names would also be his call, and that Mamata would ratify them and forward them to the governor.
Some observers in the hills said today that Gurung had taken an impulsive decision by annoucing the first two nominations.
Barla’s colleagues could not mask their disappointment as well as their leader.
“The inclusion of John Barla as a nominated member in the GTA would have been a recognition of the struggle we have carried out along with Morcha workers and leaders in favour of the GTA and inclusion of territories,” one of them said. “Now if his name is struck off from the list, it would naturally leave us and our workers disappointed.”
The leaders further clarified that due to the decision, they are also apprehensive of confronting unpleasant questions from supporters. “We were happy as our leader was getting a berth in the GTA, which we perceived as a clear message from the Morcha that they had not forgotten us and our demand to include our territories. This would have been a major point for us to show our supporters in our campaign during panchayat polls,” a Barla faction leader said.
“But if he is excluded from the GTA, we will be asked by supporters what we got by joining hands with the Morcha…. It would be also tough to retain our support base then.”
Some observers interpreted Trinamul’s move as a strategy to win support of tribals in the in the Terai and Dooars, where, apart from the CPM, the Congress also has some presence.
“With the tribals and even Gorkhas in Terai and Dooars feeling disappointed, it would be easy for Trinamul to address their grievances and meet their demands separately through the state machinery, coupled with an invite to join Trinamul,” one of them said.
“The tactics of both Morcha and Trinamul are designed to create a support base ahead of panchayat elections…. The common benefit of both these parties (Trinamul and Morcha) is that the residents, specifically tea workers and tribals who form the majority in these areas, are allergic to the Left and also to the Congress in some cases.”
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