Darjeeling: No tie-up with Trinamul Congress in rural polls: GJMM

DARJEELING, 25 FEB: The Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha president, Mr Bimal Gurung, today made it clear to party leaders from the Terai-Dooars region that his party would have no truck with the ruling party in the ensuing rural body polls amidst murmurs of a resentment that the party has backed out of its commitment to keep the Terai-Dooars on board while striving for the cause of Gorkhaland.
Hundreds of party activists and supporters from the Terai-Dooars gathered at Gymkhana Hall in Darjeeling as the party leadership had called a meeting to interact with them to offset the ruling party's attempt to woo over dissidents and those disgruntled with the party for having supposedly betrayed the cause of the region.
Mr Gurung warned Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee against attempting to split his party in the Terai-Dooars.
“She has already bought some, tempting them with contracts and jobs with eyes riveted on the upcoming rural polls. We are somehow helpless in going all out to champion the cause of the Terai-Dooars as part of the Gorkhaland state we have been demanding because of the GTA jurisdiction having remained confined within the Hills. However, make no mistake that we have not forgone the interests of the region. It is as dear to our heart as the Hills,” Mr Gurung said.
However, in a tone that stands in sharp contrast to the confidence, Mr Gurung has evinced, a senior GJMM leader from the Dooars, Mr Asok Lama, said the credibility of the party is at its all-time low in the region.
“We are finding it difficult to keep our flocks together in view of the indifference being shown by the senior party leaders. Regretfully, with over six months having passed since the GTA was sworn in neither Mr Gurung nor any of the executive GTA members has cared to visit the region. The ruling party is out to take advantage of the chinks in the party rank and file,” he said.
Another leader from the plains, Mr Shiva Pradhan, echoed the same, saying that the region figures least in the now-revived round of statehood movement.
The GJMM general secretary, Mr Roshan Giri, said his party would contest the upcoming rural polls in alliance with the John Barla faction of the Akhil Bharatiya Adhvasi Vikas Parishad that is a wing of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha. He also said in March the party would place its submission to the Fact Finding Committee which was formed to look afresh into their land demand in the plains following the Shymal Sen Committee having recommended just five out of 396 mouzas from the Terai and the Dooars to be included in the GTA that  to be included within the GTA.

TMC bid to spread wings in Terai, Dooars

SILIGURI, 25 FEB: Dissident Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha (GJMM) leaders in the Terai-Dooars region, who recently joined the Trinamul Congress, have been asked to form Trinamul units in all tea plantations in the Dooars, inviting all activists, who were followers of Mr Bimal Gurung and fought for additional lands to be included in the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA).  This at a time when the GJMM leadership has primarily decided not to go for a tie-up with the Trinamul Congress in the upcoming rural polls in the region.
A total of 27 GJMM leaders from the Dooars under the leadership of Mr Padam Lama, former GJMM president of the Dooars committee, joined the Trinamul Congress and started working to form organisations in the Dooars.
The Trinamul Congress leadership has also asked Mr Lama to manage at least 1,000 Nepali-speaking activists from the tea plantation areas who will work for the Trinamul Congress’s youth wing in the Dooars ahead of the upcoming rural polls.
Mr Lama said: “We have planned to garner thousands of GJMM activists who would join the Trinamul Congress in March. A senior youth Trinamul Congress leader from the Dooars, Mr Sourav Chakraborty, would be coming to address a rally tentatively at Birpara on 6 March where they would join the the ruling party. We are trying hard to form units of Trinamul Congress in different plantation areas as early as possible.”
The Trinamul Congress has planned to offer tickets for the three-tier panchayat polls to GJMM activists, who would join the Trinamul Congress actively.
The Trinamul Congress-backed trade union has also spread its wings in almost 60 tea plantations in the Adivasi-dominated areas under the leadership of Mr Joachim Buxla, who was the former RSP leader and MP for Alipurduar.
Sources said if the Trinamul Congress couldn’t manage the splinter ABAVP group of leaders, who would contest the upcoming rural polls under the banner of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and make an alliance with the GJMM, the ruling party would contest independently. 
statesman news service