GTA election : GJMM in a fix

statesman news service

SILIGURI, 2 MARCH: The Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha leaders seem to be pulling into reverse direction over the long dragging issue of territory-expansion involving the GTA.  It has been learnt from the party sources, the party president, Mr Bimal Gurung has been grappling with the dilemma with the issue of participation in the GTA election drawing near.

The chief minister has made it clear in course of interaction with the GJMM apparatchiks in Kalimpong that the state government would expect the GJMM leaders to prepare themselves for the GTA elections once the long-awaited Presidential assent to the GTA Bill is obtained. She assured them the assent would come in a fortnight. And herein begins the dilemma involving the Hill party mandarins.  

Mr Gurung looks determined not to allow his party to cooperate with the administration in moving ahead with the constituency-delimitation process that is supposed to be the penultimate stage to the holding of elections to the autonomous body. “He keeps sticking steadfastly to his avowed stance that there would be no elections before the land dispute is settled once and for all to their satisfaction. Yet, there is another faction which is eager to go on with the electoral engagement while carrying on with agitation for incorporating lands across Terai-Dooars into the geographical contours of the proposed autonomous body.  Things have remained murky and nobody knows what would be the fate of the body,” a GJMM leader from Kurseong said.

An observer said the GTA election remaining suspended owing to the headstrong GJMM attitude would ultimately lead to the erosion of the party’s mass following. “The Hill people are apprehensive lest the GTA follows in the footsteps of the Sixth Schedule Bill envisaged by the Ghising regime. They would find it hard to brook with the GJMM antics when the accord has aroused development expectations in the developmentally long-neglected Hills,” he said.  

It seems, a powerful party faction with the leaders based in Kalimpong is straining every nerve to stall the GTA execution with the land knot remaining unresolved. “Leaders like Mr Kalyan Dewan from Kalimpong and Mr Kamal Pakrin from the Dooars are in the vanguard of the campaign. It would be difficult for Mr Gurung to ignore them given their proximity to him,” a GJMM local leader in Siliguri confided.

There is, however, another opinion that the GJMM leadership would ultimately climb down from its apparently inflexible stance on the vexed issue once the chief minister appeals to them to participate in the electoral process for the sake of development in the Hills.