Gorkha Janmukti Morcha chief Binay Tamang on Saturday accused BJP leaders and his rival Bimal Gurung of “lying” on recognising 11 Darjeeling hill groups as Scheduled Tribes, waving a purported email on a central team’s visit next week.
Tamang cited the email and said it showed the Union tribal affairs ministry would send a committee to Gangtok on Monday to look into similar demands from groups in Sikkim.
The email’s disclosure comes two days after Roshan Giri, a confidant of former Morcha chief Gurung, posted a video of a purported interaction between some leaders of his faction and Union tribal affairs minister Jual Oram.
The Union cabinet had on Wednesday approved an amendment bill to recognise some groups in Arunachal Pradesh as STs. There was no mention in the bill of demands for tribal status by the groups in Darjeeling, supported by the Bengal government and all hill parties.
In the clip released on Thursday, Oram is heard saying that if the “Bharat Sarkar” wants, the hill groups can be granted tribal status “overnight”. The purported statement had come amid Parliament’s winter session that ends on January 8.
On Saturday, Tamang cited the email and said: “They talk about passing the bill in the winter session whereas the committee hasn’t even completed its work.”
Tamang warned that “this lie” would cause “the political death of the BJP”. “This lie will cause the political death of BJP, Bimal Gurung and Roshan Giri. They must explain why they served lies to the hill people on such an important issue.”
The purported email was sent on Thursday, the same day the video of Oram meeting Gurung faction leaders, along with Darjeeling BJP MP S.S. Ahluwalia, was circulated.
In September last year, Tamang had cited an RTI reply which indicated the Registrar-General of India had twice rejected the Bengal government’s recommendation to grant ST status to the 11 hill groups.