ABAVP brings back rebel leader

ABAVP brings back rebel leader

30 January 2012

SILIGURI, 30 JAN: In order to teach local rebel leaders a lesson, the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad (ABAVP) state leadership reinstated another rebel leader of the outfit in the Dooars, Mr Rajesh Lakra, who had resigned a year ago.
ABAVP state president Birsa Tirkey formed a two member ad hoc committee appointing Mr Rajesh Lakra as its secretary. Mr Tirkey was prevented by local rebellion, allegedly under the leadership of Mr John Barla, former regional president, from organising a meeting at Nagrakata in Jalpaiguri yesterday. Mr Tirkey said that he had appointed Mr Babulal Kujur as president and Mr Lakra as secretary of the ad hoc committee for the Dooars. The term of the ad hoc committee is six months and the committee would bring in other members to run organisational activities.
“A few members of the existing committee were inactive when the Mr Barla was terminated. I did not want to form the ad hoc committee but I had to take the decision in consultation with my colleagues to resolve the present crisis in the Dooars,” Mr Tirkey said.
The ABAVP state leadership had terminated Mr Barla and suspended other leaders including, Mr Sukra Munda, who was the chairman of the ABAVP-backed Progressive Tea Workers’ Union (PTWU), on charges of singing a pact with the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha (GJMM).
They had agreed to form the Gorkha and Adivasi Territorial Administration (GATA) and offered additional lands from the Terai and the Dooars to the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) allegedly without prior approval of the state leadership.
Mr Barla lodged a complaint with the party’s central leadership against the state president’s unilateral decision to form ad hoc committee without dissolving the existing committee. sns