Ahead of meet with GJM, Mamata rejects Bengal's division

Herald Globe (IANS) Friday 10th February, 2012

Ahead of a meeting with the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), which has threatened to re-start the Gorkhaland campaign, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Friday said she wants a unified state and does not support those who want to divide the plains and the hills.

"We don't want division, we want unity. Those who want to separate hills, those who want to separate plains... I don't support them. We want unity and unified Bengal. We don't support separatist movement," said Banerjee at the inaugural programme of the North Bengal Festival.

"All of us can stay together peacefully. Until and unless we see Kanchenjunga hills in Darjeeling, we don't get peace. Until and unless we see forests of Terai and Dooars, we don't get peace. The plains and the hills have to stay together," she asserted.

The GJM leadership is to meet Banerjee Saturday to demand swift implementation of the proposed hill administration.

"At 12 noon Saturday we will meet the chief minister. We will demand quick implementation of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) treaty. We also want to know why the promised aid in regard to the earthquake has not reached," GJM legislator Haraka Bahadur Chetri told IANS.

Earlier, GJM president Bimal Gurung had set a March 27 deadline for the GTA's creation and had warned that if that was not done, the treaty document would be burnt.

Chetri also expressed his anger over the "unnecessary delay" in implementing the GTA accord -- a tripartite agreement that was signed on July 18 last year between the GJM and the state and central governments for setting up a new autonomous, elected GTA, armed with more powers than its predecessor, the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC).

Under the agreement, an expert committee was set up to conduct survey of the Gorkha-dominated parts of Siliguri, Terai (plains of Darjeeling) and Dooars (foothills of the eastern Himalyas) to see if some territory from these areas could be brought under the proposed GTA.

The committee, headed by Justice (retd) Shyamal Sen, was expected to give its report late by last month, after it was given an extension of six months.

The GJM has expressed anguish over the developments. GJM general secretary Roshan Giri met Governor M.K. Narayanan Tuesday and requested him to ensure that the GTA was formed soon.

The governor, now on a visit to Darjeeling, assured Giri that he would take up the matter with President Pratibha Patil, whose assent is required for the the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration Bill, 2011, passed by the state assembly in December.

Meanwhile, five anti-GJM parties in the hills -- the Akhil Bharatiya Gorkha League, the Communist Party of Revolutionary Marxists, the Gorkha National Liberation Front (C.K. Pradhan), the Gorkhaland Rashtriya Nirman Morcha and the Bharatiya Gorkha Parisang -- have formed a Gorkhaland Task Force.

These parties have accused the GJM of betraying the cause of Gorkhaland and getting obsessed with the GTA.