Darjeeling: A hurried invitation was dispatched to GNLF President Mann Ghising to attend a meeting of NDA constituent parties in New Delhi on Tuesday at 5 pm. However, the sudden invitation has been labelled as a damage control measure by different political camps. With only a day left to the 20 July deadline, the promised letter for a tripartite meeting to thrash out the Gorkha impasses also failed to arrive.
Incidentally, questions were being raised by different Hill political camps as to why Hill parties were not being invited to the NDA meeting. As a face-saver many, including the GNLF, claimed that they are the allies of the BJP and not the NDA, hence there was no invitation. However, on Monday evening, a day ahead of the meet, Mann Ghising received a sudden invitation to attend the NDA meet in Delhi at 5 pm on Tuesday. The letter was signed by JP Nadda. “GNLF President Mann Ghising will be raising issues concerning the Hills and the aspiration of the Hills,” stated Neeraj Zimba, BJP MLA from Darjeeling who is also the General Secretary of the GNLF.
Political observers feel that the hurried invitation to Ghising is part of BJP’s damage control mechanism.
“BJP has always given Darjeeling Hills a priority. The GNLF has been our ally in the last Lok Sabha, Assembly and the recently concluded Panchayat elections, hence the invitation,” claimed MP Bista.
“What is the relevance of this invitation? BJP has not translated a single assurance into action in the past 15 years. Let them live up to their commitments. The BJP alliance fell flat in the Panchayat elections” stated Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha Spokesperson SP Sharma.
BJP MP Raju Bista during Panchayat elections had assured that a tripartite meeting would be convened by the Union Government by 20 July on the Gorkha impasse, to thrash out a permanent political solution. No such meeting has been called by the Government yet. “NDA's invite to a Hill political outfit is nothing but damage control and an eyewash. It is just a strategy for BJP to keep afloat in the next Lok Sabha elections in 2024, in the Darjeeling Hills” claimed Shanta Chettri, President, TMC Darjeeling district committee (Hills.)