Anit Thapa’s Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha (BGPM) has decided to hold a public meeting in Darjeeling on Sunday at a time when protests against the distribution of five decimals of land in tea gardens are growing loud.
“The Darjeeling town committee of the party has decided to organise a public meeting on the present political issues of the hills at the Darjeeling Motor Stand on September 3,” Alok Kant Mani Thulung, the president of the BGPM's Darjeeling unit, said without elaborating on the issue.
The sudden meeting has caught many by surprise as the party had only on Friday announced that it would be organising the foundation day celebration in Kalimpong on September 9.
The BGPM suddenly decided to call a meeting with the entire Opposition parties in the hills and also sections of tea garden workers opposed to the Bengal government’s scheme to provide land rights only up to five decimals of land.
On August 1, the Bengal government had issued a notification to grant land rights to people residing in tea gardens of six north Bengal districts.
“Home stead pattas shall be granted to the eligible families upto the extent of 5 decimals of land. These pattas shall be heritable but not transferable,” the notification states. Five decimals translate into 2,176 square feet.
The government has decided to grant land rights not just to the tea workers but also to the “retiring and/or retired landless labourers and long-term occupiers of tea garden”.
Many are opposing the scheme saying a lot of workers are in possession of more than five decimals of land. They want the rights to be granted for the entire land under their possession.
Some have also expressed apprehension that the government might take away their remaining land and hand it over to business bodies.
There are many who are also against the use of the term “landless” in the notification. “We are not landless, these plots have been under our possession for generations. It is just that we have not been given documents for the land under possession,” said an Opposition leader.
