Gurung, Mamata talks amicable, ‘Gorkhaland’ on hold for now

“Don't instigate, otherwise the situation could deteriorate,” she said when the reporters sought comments from Mr Gurung on Gorkhaland.

statesman news service
KOLKATA, 30 MAY: With the change of guard at Writers’ Buildings, the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha (GJMM) attempted to begin on an amicable note as its chief, Mr Bimal Gurung, for once, at least apparently, did not harp on the demands for a separate state but left it to the chief minister, Miss Mamata Banerjee, to think of a solution that would be acceptable to all stake holders.
“Gorkhaland ka baat bad me hoga. (Talks regarding Gorkhaland will take place later). Didi has thought something (about Gorkhaland). The outcome will be good,” Mr Gurung said following a meeting with the chief minister Miss Mamata Banerjee at Writers’ Buildings this evening.
The GJMM chief, along with senior party functionaries, including newly-elected MLAs, met the chief minister and chief secretary Mr Samar Ghosh and discussed the Gorkhaland issue. It may be recalled that Miss Banerjee at the first Cabinet meeting had taken decision to resolve the crisis in the hills “within three months”.
Following the meeting, Miss Banerjee announced that state government officials, including Mr Ghosh, will hold discussion with the GJMM leaders at Writers’ Buildings on 6 June to find out ways to resolve the crisis in Darjeeling.
“After that, discussion at political level will start afresh. The chief secretary will also speak to the Centre about the outcome of the meeting with the GJMM," she said.
“We want the crisis in both Junglemahal and Darjeeling to be solved, Many problems can be solved if there is political vision,” she maintained. “Don't instigate, otherwise the situation could deteriorate,” she said when the reporters sought comments from Mr Gurung on Gorkhaland.
Mr Gurung, who had earlier been sticking to the demand for a CBI enquiry into the police firing at Sipchu on 8 February this year, has also agreed to Miss Banarjee's appeal “to keep faith on Criminal Investigating Department (CID)” which is probing the incident in which three GJMM supporters were killed.
“We are restructuring the CID and requested him to keep faith on CID inquiry. He agreed to it, Miss Banerjee said, adding the state government would “help the families” that had lost their members in the police firing.

Gurung to meet CM today, says Gorkhaland can wait

DARJEELING/SILIGURI, 29 MAY: After being invited by the new chief minister Miss Mamata Banerjee, the president of  the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha (GJMM), Mr Bimal Gurung, along with two members of its Study Forum, Mr LB Pariyar and Mr P Arjun, today arrived in Kolkata to attend a two-way talks with the state government in Kolkata tomorrow. Notably, the GJMM had refrained from holding two-way talks on the Hills problem with the Left Front government since 2009.
Though the GJMM leaders have termed tomorrow's meeting as a “courtesy call”, speculation is rife that Miss Banerjee may offer something to the GJMM after she herself called upon Mr Gurung to come down to Kolkata.
Speaking to reporters at Bagdogra, Mr Gurung, said: “Though Gorkhaland is our main demand we are not in a hurry to obtain it. We have faith in the new CM.”
“We are going to Kolkata just to congratulate her and have decided to give her some time to settle down and work on the development of the state and Hills.”
Political observers said that the GJMM would adjust with the present Central and state governments to obtain autonomy, including a special package for the development of the Hills, which was decided at the last meeting in New Delhi on 25 January. On the other hand, speaking on the Gorkhaland issue, the GJMM media secretary, Mr HB Chettri, newly-elected MLA from Kalimpong, has expressed his faith in the new government, stating that there would be no compromise on the separate state issue and they would welcome any talks that will pave the way for Gorkhaland. While Miss Banerjee has announced that she will solve the longstanding problems in the Hills within three months, it is also well-known that the CM is against the division of Bengal, political observers believe reorganisation of the autonomous hill council in terms of the financial and legislative powers may be on the cards for the GJMM. sns

Expert panel for development of Hills on the anvil

22 May 2011

statesman news service
SILIGURI/DARJEELING, 22 MAY: The state government under the leadership of the new chief minister, Miss Mamata Banerjee, would form an expert committee soon for the development of the Hills.
The state North Bengal development minister, Mr Gautam Deb, today said that he had discussed the matter with Miss Banerjee for the development of the Hills and a way out to resolve the Hills problem.
“We would form an expert committee very soon seeking suggestions for the development the Hills,” Mr Deb told reporters here today.
Hundreds of Trinamul leaders and workers greeted Mr Deb when he arrived in New Jalpaiguri station this morning. He met the leaders in Dabgram-Fulbari Assembly constituency where hundreds of Trinamul supporters took out a victory rally. Mr Deb was felicitated at many places, including Siliguri.
The state North Bengal development minister, Mr Gautam Deb, also said that he would hold a meeting shortly with the officials of the Siliguri-Jalpaiguri Development Authority and chalk out plan for the development of Siliguri.
Mr Deb today visited an abandoned railway land near Air View in Siliguri. Sources said that the state might set up separate secretariat for north Bengal here.
When asked Mr Gautam Deb said that the state would set up ‘mini Writers’ Buildings and start functioning very soon but he refused to disclose in detail regarding setting up of the mini secretariat at present.
“I would leave for Kolkata tonight and hold a meeting with the CM. I would return on Friday and hold another meeting at SJDA and Siliguri Municipal Corporation,” he said.
Mr Deb also hinted that the Trinamul would officially make an alliance with the Congress to run the Siliguri municipal corporation. He has sought cooperation from the SMC for the development of Siliguri.
Meanwhile, all schools in the Hills will remain closed tomorrow, this will include all government-aided primary and higher secondary schools and other schools of ICSE and CBSE background. The Gorkha Primary Teachers Organisation, a Morcha-affiliated body, has taken this decision keeping in view its eleven-point charter of demands, the organisation has also demanded the removal of Mr PT Sherpa from the post of the education secretary of Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC). “We will meet the District Magistrate of Darjeeling, Mr MK Gandhi, and DGHC administrator Mr Anil Verma and put forward our eleven-point charter of demands including ouster of Mr PT Sherpa, thereafter we will decide on the future course of our organisation's agitation, stated Mr Benedict Gurung, president of GPTO. Previously the organisation had decided on keeping all schools across the Hills closed on 23 May and 24 May, however, after the Central Committee, GPTO meeting with the members of Janmukti Secondary Teachers Organisation (JSTO) today, the organisation has decided on keeping the schools closed for just one day keeping in view the admission  going on in schools and colleges.
“Schools across the hills will remain closed for just a day as the result of ICSE, ISC and Madhyamik exams are just out and admissions are on,” said Mr Gurung. The organisation had met the DGHC administrator on 10 May. “Though  the meeting with Mr Verma was fruitful and he has assured us that our demands will be looked seriously into, no concrete step has been taken till now, this is the reason why we have decided on meeting him and the DM tomorrow,” said Mr Gurung.

Ghisingh’s sudden exit demoralises party activists

Ghisingh’s sudden exit demoralises party activists

17 May 2011

KURSEONG, 17 MAY: The GNLF looks demoralised after the sudden departure of the party chief, Mr Subash Ghisingh, from the Hills last night.
GNLF supporters were a frustrated lot when they came to know of Mr Ghisingh's sudden departure from the Hills. Feeling insecure, many GNLF supporters and leaders from different places of the Hills, mainly from Sonada region have reportedly decided to resign from the party. The GNLF senior leader Kurseong branch, president, Mr Palden Dorjee Bhutia refused to comment on the matter.
A frustrated GNLF supporter said: "In the past, we were threatened and tortured by the GJMM and were also gheraoed by them, but we never deserted the party out of fear as we had full faith in Mr Ghisingh. But last night Mr Ghisingh's stand of leaving the Hills is making us insecure. So, we have decided to quit the GNLF and politics."
A local said that politically Mr Ghisingh has never done such a thing in the past. But his act has left his cadres confused, bewildered and insecure. However, at the same time, a section of GNLF supporters said: "We still trust Mr Ghisingh and his silent politics. It may be a political strategy that forced him to leave the Hills. Mr Ghisingh and the GNLF have always followed the policy of non-violence and peace. We still believe that he will return soon."
On the other hand, a section of GNLF leadership think that the step taken by Mr Ghisingh is a political strategy to pave the way for the implementation of the Sixth Schedule. Sources also said that Mr Ghisingh was supposed to meet Mrs Sonia Gandhi, for which all the preparation had already been done but the GJMM was supposedly trying to foil it and it was mainly due to this reason that Mr Ghisingh was forced to take such a decision in the last minute. Mr Ghisingh will soon meet Mrs Sonia Gandhi regarding the demand of the Sixth Schedule. sns

Watershed Election

Watershed Election
Lessons For The Winner, And For The Loser

By Ravindra Kumar

If the Left doesn’t learn and Miss Banerjee plays her cards right, 2011 could well turn out to be a fatal blow for Indian Communism. But if Miss Banerjee slips up, 2011 could well become a fatal blow for West Bengal.

AND so West Bengal has finally said goodbye to the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and its assorted partners. It has done so decisively, and while the Marxists would now like us to believe that change was inevitable after three decades and more in power, they ought to be stunned if only because they had seemed so totally in control even three years ago. But in the victory of the Trinamul and the defeat of the Left, there are lessons for both political groupings.
The Left must realize that no party can afford to employ Stalinist tactics in a multi-party democratic structure. Indeed, a party of the sort that the CPI-M had become in West Bengal ~ one that controlled, even micro-managed the lives of citizens and sought to stifle dissent ~ was an aberration.
Apologists of the Left will disagree; they will argue it was these methods that kept them in power for 34 years. But if they are honest with themselves, they will appreciate basic truths. The Left came to power riding a wave it hadn’t created. It was re-elected the first two times because it followed a broadly socialist, and not overtly Stalinist, agenda. Thereafter it remained in power by distorting elections, through creation of bogus voters and manipulation of the polling process. For at least the past 15 years, it was helped by the wooly-headedness of the Congress and on occasion the national party’s complicity in preserving the status quo in Bengal for gains in New Delhi. It was this ambivalence that forced Miss Mamata Banerjee to form her own party more than a decade ago.
And in the past two decades, especially in the last years of Jyoti Basu and throughout the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee period, the CPI-M became intolerant of dissent, impervious to criticism and arrogant in its conduct. Worse, it sought to convey to the people it ruled that the writ of the party and its leaders could not be questioned. The civil service was whipped into blind obedience, the police became an agent of the party and civil society was bludgeoned into submission. Quite honestly, it was difficult to find more wimpish civil servants than the ones in Bengal after Marxists had put them in their places; a dozen or more needed to be put together to fashion a single working backbone.
On a personal note, this writer’s life as a journalist ~ a span of some 33 years ~ has been spent almost equally in New Delhi and Kolkata. In New Delhi, the Left, especially the Marxists, presented a soft, articulate, liberal face; they were the ones who would present cogently the arguments against the establishment of which they were never fully a part. Their methods could be questioned on occasion, never their intent or the fact that their hearts seemed to be in the right place.
It was on moving to Calcutta as it was in the mid-1990s that the other ~ harsher, wholly intolerant ~ face of Marxists revealed itself, one so different from the impression formed at Delhi’s coffee houses and the India International Centre.
And this face was of a political grouping that was brutal and ruthless, that could institute false civil and criminal cases, disrupt newspaper supplies on a regular basis, surround and attack a newspaper office, order arrests almost at will, sponsor a shadow trade union to foment industrial strife, orchestrate bogus and scurrilous allegations about colleagues, whip up communal passions, keep simple governmental clearances pending for indeterminate periods and, in general, do everything it could to stifle criticism it saw as dissent.
Sadly, most major players in Bengal’s print media allowed themselves to become willing supporters of the Left’s tactics, because the party had three powers that owners found irresistible. One, by its capture of the hawkers’ unions, the ruling party could subtly but surely ensure which paper was delivered to a subscriber and which one was not. Two, by controlling the flow of Government advertisements it could influence bottom lines. And three by offering other largesse, including public land at concessional prices, it could entice proprietors. Sadly many succumbed, one newspaper going as far as to shamelessly advocate violence by the state to quell the protests against land acquisition in Singur and another to proclaim as recently as two years ago that all sensible people were with the Chief Minister.
The fact though that these tactics worked for as long as they did should not suggest that they will work again. And this is the challenge that confronts both political groupings. A Trinamul government must dismantle extra-constitutional structures; the Marxists must recast their politics without leaving space for their various levels of intrusive committees, and by recognizing that criticism is a necessary component of a democracy. In short, while the Trinamul must strive to govern in a generally liberal and democratic fashion, the Left if it wants to be a force in Indian politics must aspire to return to power in the manner of democrats.
The onus is on the Marxists to realise that their ideology, as they have unfolded it in Bengal and Tripura, is an aberration within a multi-party structure of the sort we have in India. Kerala, truly, does not count because the Marxists have ruled as members of broad coalitions that have sometimes included such obvious non-socialist entities as the Nationalist Congress Party of Sharad Pawar and Praful Patel and because the voter has used anti-incumbency as an effective check on authoritarianism. Outside this country, Communism has worked only in single-party structures. And the methods that might work in Beijing, or once did in Moscow, are unlikely to work in India indefinitely.
Equally, this is a lesson for Trinamul, especially because it may be tempted to replicate ~ at various levels of society ~ the levers that the Left had employed so successfully to perpetuate its rule. That will be foolhardy and counter-productive. Having done away with the so-called dictatorship of an anointed proletariat, it is unlikely people will accept the autocracy of a self-proclaimed, but as yet untested, democrat.
Life has given Miss Banerjee the opportunity of a lifetime. If she is able to offer to the people of West Bengal a responsive and democratic government, she could well force the Left to recast itself as a more liberal, less intolerant political party. The Constitution does not provide for – or permit – Stalinist methods; and even after Indira Gandhi’s tinkering, it allows space only for socialist politics, certainly not for the sort of dictatorship of the proletariat that the Marxists employed over a significant part of the past 34 years on the assumption that voters had endorsed it.
If the Left doesn’t learn and Miss Banerjee plays her cards right, 2011 could well turn out to be a fatal blow for Indian Communism. But if Miss Banerjee slips up, 2011 could well become a fatal blow for West Bengal.
The writer is Editor, The Statesman.

GJMM sweeps Hills, Asok stunned in plains

ambika pradhan/manas r banerjee
DARJEELING/ SILIGURI, 13 MAY: As the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha (GJMM) has swept the Assembly elections in the Darjeeling Hills winning all the three constituencies, CPI-M strongman and minister Mr Asok Bhattacharya had to face defeat.
The party candidate from the Darjeeling constituency, Mr Trilok Dewan defeated his nearest GNLF rival, Mr Bhim Subba by a margin of 1,06,555 votes. Mrs Bharati Tamang, the AIGL candidate and the widow of the slain party president, Madan Tamang, was relegated to the third position.
In the Kalimpong constituency, the GJMM contestant and the party media secretary, Dr Harka Bahadur Chhetri defeated his nearest GNLF candidate, Mr Prakash Dahal by a margin of 1,01,675 votes. The AIGL candidate was again relegated to the third position. In Kurseong GJMM's Dr Rohit Sharma defeated his nearest GNLF candidate, Mrs Prema Chhetri by a margin of over 93,000 votes.
The GJMM polled over 3,00,000 votes in the three seats while its bete noir, the GNLF lagged far behind having polled a little over 42,000 votes.
Meanwhile, Mr Asok Bhattacharya, the CPI-M strongman in north Bengal,  was defeated by the Trinamul Congress candidate,  Dr Rudranath Bhattacharya by a margin of 5,006 votes.
The Trinamul-Congress combine successfully bagged all the three seats in the Siliguri sub-division.
The CPI-M candidates, Mr Chhotan Kisku and Mr Jharen Roy were also defeated, with the later losing the Matigara-Naxalbari constituency  to the the Congress candidate, Mr Shankar Malakar. Another Congress candidate, Mr Sunil Tirkey defeated Mr Chhotan Kisku in Phansidewa Assembly seat, by 2,237 votes. With the defeat of the two CPI-M candidates and one CPI candidate in the Hills the LF has been wiped out from the Darjeeling district.

Left Front will win at least 158 seats: Asok

Left Front will win at least 158 seats: Asok

11 May 2011

statesman news service
SILIGURI, 11 MAY: With poll predictions being churned out by the media houses confirming in unison an imminent Left rout, the senior CPI-M leader and the state urban development minister, Mr Asok Bhattacharya, reaffirmed his conviction that the Left Front would romp home with a comfortable majority. “We will win at least 158 of the 294 seats in the reckoning,” he said.
“Exit polls are bogus. They have no scientific basis. Most of the surveys are motivated and part of the anti-Left Front campaign,” he averred.
He, however, admitted that the 2011 election was the toughest for the ruling Front. “We have no illusions over that. It is difficult to retain some seats. But to say that we would lose seats like Binpur, Jamuria, Chopra, Malatipur and others is to indulge in idle fancy. If the exit polls were to be believed Dr Manas Bhuniya would lose from Sabong. This is ridiculous,” he said.
Sounding optimistic, the Siliguri strongman said that the Front had already retrieved grounds in some places since the parliamentary election debacle in 2009. “The election results would show that the Left redoubt has remained unscathed in most parts of the state despite malicious campaign by the Opposition,” he said.
Taking a swipe at the Trianmul Congress, Mr Bhattacharya said that it had gone into an overt electoral alliance with forces inimical to the interests of the state.
“With the GJMM in Darjeeling Hills and Maoists in Junglemahal having allied with Trinamul Congress, grim days are awaiting the state. We have information that Maoists had forced the people to cast their votes for the Trinamul Congress in several areas of West Midnapore. The same thing happened in the Dooars where the GJMM, ABAVP, the Congress and the Trinamul Congress are in the same camp. We have reasons to be worried,” he said.