The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (Binay Tamang faction), an ally of Trinamul since 2017, on Tuesday said the state government should not “play foul” with them, the assertion coming in the wake of the rival Bimal Gurung faction joining hands with Mamata Banerjee’s party too.
The Binay Tamang-Anit Thapa faction held a well-attended public meeting at Kurseong Motor Stand on Tuesday, the same venue of their arch-rivals from the Bimal Gurung faction, who held their first meeting on Sunday after over three-and-half-years since the violent Gorkhaland agitation, resurfacing in the hills publicly only after the Gurung on October 21 dumped the BJP and allied with Trinamul.
Roshan Giri, general-secretary of the Gurung camp, had on Sunday accused the Gurung camp of corruption and nepotism while running the GTA.
On Tuesday, Anit Thapa and other leaders from the Tamang camp tried to paint Gurung as a leader without vision and with wrong agendas.
Warring Morcha factions despite being TMC allies are competing to show their strength to the TMC. Both the meetings — Giri’s on Sunday and Thapa’s Tuesday — drew crowds.
Thapa, general secretary of the Tamang camp, who also chairs the board of administrators of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), said: “We would like to tell the state government that they must not play foul with us. We have been openly stating that we are working with the government. The government must understand (it).”
The state government had appointed Thapa as the chairman of the hill body. “We jumped into the fire (by deciding to side with the state government during 2017 Gorkhaland agitation) and we are not afraid of fire,” said Thapa.
Countering Giri’s allegations of corruption in the GTA, Thapa said: “They (the Gurung camp) are talking about audits. I know that when the state government wanted to conduct an audit (when Gurung ran GTA), the Gorkhaland agitation started and offices burnt to destroy papers. The GTA is now online and the government is aware of each and every file.”
“When we were in jail during the 2013 statehood agitation, you (Gurung) accepted the GTA. You wanted your leader Anos Thapa to die when he was ill in jail because you thought that his death would intensify the agitation in Kurseong,” alleged Thapa.
The Gurung camp, to justify their joining hands with Trinamul, said one of the reasons was to ensure that “displaced” people who had cases slapped against them during the 2017 agitation could return home.
Thapa tore into this argument to say: “They are not displaced people but people who fled the hills leaving the common man on the lurch. You will not get Gorkhaland by pelting stones at police and burning houses.”
Thapa said his party was trying to change the “political culture” in the hills and had allowed Bimal Gurung camp to hold a public meeting. Other party leaders said that the process had started to grant land rights to villagers of Nirpani in Mirik block and surveys in tea gardens and cinchona plantations would also be held.
“Solving unemployment problem will be our major thrust area,” said Thapa.
Gurung is scheduled to address a public meeting at Baga Jatin Park in Siliguri on December 6.
Thapa on Tuesday countered that they, too, would hold a “mega rally” in Sukna soon.