Darjeeling administration asked morcha to vacate party office in govt building

Darjeeling: The Darjeeling district administration has asked the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha to vacate a government building housing one of its offices.

The administration had last week sealed a five-storied building in Singamari that had the Morcha central committee's office after an inquiry revealed that the building was constructed on government land.

Sources said the government served a notice on the Morcha's Darjeeling town committee president on Monday, asking him to vacate the building in Chowk Bazaar by Wednesday, failing which "legal action will be taken against him along with forceful evacuation of the premises".

According to officials, the administration had found that a portion of the Darjeeling municipality building, where the party office is currently located, had initially been rented out to the postal department by the civic body.

"That portion was encroached on and the office set up," said an official.

The Morcha office had been torched by unidentified people in the middle of the recent 104-day agitation.

Sources said most of the members of the Morcha's Darjeeling town committee had switched allegiance to the Binay Tamang camp.

Kamal Chhetri, the new president of the Morcha's Darjeeling unit, is also believed to be close to the Tamang lobby.

"I have not seen the letter personally. But we will definitely do the needful," Chhetri said.

Officials pointed out that occupying government buildings to set up party offices while in power was nothing new in Darjeeling. The CPM and the Trinamul Congress both run their party offices from government buildings.

Both these parties, interestingly though, have their offices in the same government building.

While the CPM has an office on the ground floor of the four-storied building since 1999, the Trinamul Congress has taken control of the three vacant floors.

Told about this, a senior district official said: "Until now, we had received specific information about these two properties (Chowk Bazar and Singamari). But if we receive information about other properties being encroached on, we will definitely take action."

The Telegraph