Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is
presently campaigning in North Bengal, was today in Birpara where she
addressed a giant crowd at the Sarna ST club premises. A firm Banerjee
strongly resisted talks of separate statehood and said, “The people of
Bengal want peace and harmony and we are always for prosperity and
progress of the state. I have been repeating several times, Bengal will
not be divided at any cost. There will be no state called Gorkhaland.”
She said the GTA has been formed for the development the hills and the people there must be satisfied with the arrangement.
The TMC president also condemned the BJP
for trying to misguide the sentiments of the hill people. Describing
the BJP’s ploy a “conspiracy”, she appealed to people to understand the
promises being made by the saffron party are all bogus. “All
communities living in Bengal are our own and all are equal here,” she
said.
Once the Lok Sabha election gets over,
Alipurduar will be promoted to a district status in order to ease
administrative works, she promised.
Area TMC leader Padam Lama said the
people of the Dooars and the Terai want to live in harmony and urged the
people not fall prey to the false promises of hill leaders. He slammed
the GJM by saying, “Bimal Gurung has been tricking us on the pretext of
the Gorkhaland movement, and whatever he says are lies.”(EOIC)