GTA review meet postponed

Darjeeling: Four days after calling a Gorkhaland Territorial Administration review meeting in Delhi on August 7, the Union Home ministry rushed a fresh letter on Saturday declaring that the meeting stands postponed.

The letter dated August 1 stated that the "meeting stands postponed" but did not specify any reason nor a fresh date for the talks.

With the arrival of the first letter dated July 27, Hill political and apolitical outfits alike had demanded that the BJP led union government should instead call a meeting to translate their assurance made during 2019 parliamentary election, of a permanent political solution (PPS) for the Gorkhas, into reality in the form of a separate state of Gorkhaland.

Both the GJM President Binoy Tamang and GTA Chairman Anit Thapa had declared that they would not be attending the meeting.

"The GJM (Binoy faction) did not demand for the cancellation of the talks, we demanded that the agenda be changed from GTA review meeting to the one-point agenda of Gorkhaland. As soon as we made this demand, they postponed the meeting indefinitely. This is the actual character and face of BJP. It is time they made it clear that by PPS they mean Gorkhaland," demanded Keshav Raj Pokhrel, central committee member, GJM (Binoy.)

The GJM has demanded that all stakeholders should be called for the talks on Gorkhaland and not a single party. They have further demanded that till the carving out of Gorkhaland, the GTA area should be incorporated under the Development of North Eastern Region (DoNer)scheme.

Meanwhile Bharatiya Gorkha Parisangh (BGP,) a pan Indian apolitical Gorkha welfare organization has demanded that the BJP live up to its Sankalp Patra (election manifesto 2019) whereby they had talked of a PPS for the Gorkhas.

"The BJP led Government should spell out what they have in mind regarding the Permanent Political Solution. It should be in line with the aspiration of the Gorkhas in the form of Gorkhaland. They should show political will like they did in Jammu and Kashmir," stated Dr Munish Tamang, Working President, BGP in a virtual press conference.

He further stated that all political parties and apolitical organisations should come together for this cause and the BJP MP Raju Bista from Darjeeling should lead the conglomerate.

Interestingly, like his two predecessors, Bista too had won the parliamentary elections in 2019 from the Darjeeling constituency riding piggyback on the Gorkhaland demand carefully masked by the words "permanent political solution."