Estranged leaders of GJM meet mamata

Some estranged leaders of the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) on Friday met Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at Nabanna after forming a separate Dooars-Siliguri-Terai Bharatiya Nepali Development Forum and requested her to form a council for the development of Terai and Dooars region.

Around eight estranged leaders of GJM including two of its former central committee members visited Nabanna.

Chief convenor of the forum Pravin Singh said they came out of GJM and formed a separate forum as the party had not taken the necessary steps for development of Terai and Dooars region. “We have handed over a memorandum to the chief secretary during the Chief Minister’s recent visit to north Bengal. We met her and told her about the scope of development in Terai and Dooars. There is still a scope of development in certain sectors including education and some changes are needed for Public Service Commission examinations. At the same time steps are needed to simplify the process to get Gorkha certificates,” he said, adding that this was the reason why they had requested the Chief Minister to set up a separate development council.

He said Banerjee had assured to look into the matter. Holding GJM responsible for not taking proper initiative for the development of Terai and Dooars, Singh said: “Whenever I went to GJM top brass to discuss about the development of Terai and Dooars region, they said that they will not hold talks with the state government. Instead they had claimed that they will discuss the matters with the Centre. Recently, they went to Delhi. But there was no statement from the side of the Union government after meeting the GJM leadership.”

“I met GJM chief Bimal Gurung for the last time on December 29, 2015. In the meeting I had raised the issue about the development of our region. I had even told him that we have no problem continuing under their leadership if they assure that necessary steps will be taken for simultaneous development of Terai and Dooars region.”

Despite claiming Dooars-Siliguri-Terai Bharatiya Nepali Development Forum is an apolitical one, the senior members of the forum on Friday claimed at Nabanna that they will be with that government who will assist them in bringing an overall development of the region.

Ananda Biswakarma, a convenor of the forum, said: “Today we came for a meeting with the state government and no political stand has been taken yet. But there are many more GJM leaders from Terai and Dooars who are with us and we will hold a meeting after returning. Moreover, there is a time left for the forthcoming Assembly elections.”

Meanwhile, Harka Bahadur Chetri, the MLA from Kalimpong, who had also quit GJM, met Chief Minister at Nabanna on Friday. He urged Banerjee to take necessary step for a audit of tne expenditure of the Gorkha land territorial administration. Meanwhile, former cricketer Sourav Ganguly met Banerjee at Nabanna.