Hamro Sikkim Party (HSP) president Bhaichung Bhutia met RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat in Calcutta on Thursday and urged him to help address the long-pending demands of reservation of Assembly seats for the Nepali-speaking communities and Limbus and Tamangs of Sikkim, and the implementation of the inner-line permit (ILP) in the state.
Bhaichung in his representation submitted to Bhagwat alleged that both the previous Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF) and the present Sikkim Krantikari Morcha (SKM) governments had failed to facilitate a solution to the reservation issue. “For equality and social justice, this issue must be resolved,” he said in the representation submitted to Bhagwat.
On the ILP issue, Bhaichung iterated that given the sensitive geographical location of Sikkim which shares borders with China in the north, Nepal in the west and Bhutan in the east, it was very important to implement the ILP on a priority basis.
”The Inner-Line Permit is already present in four state other northeast states, namely Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland.... There is no reason why Sikkim can’t get the gift of ILP from the Centre considering all parties, even the BJP, have expressed agreement on this demand,” he said.
The reservation issue and ILP, Bhaichung said, need to be solved for social cohesion and progress of Sikkim so that the succeeding generation and the government were not burdened by them in the future.
“As a prominent organisation (read RSS) that has historically been associated with the BJP which is an alliance partner in the Sikkim government, we request you to take into consideration our demand and present it to the ruling dispensation for a fair solution,” he added.
Chief minister P. S. Tamang (Golay) told The Telegraph on the sidelines of an event at Saramsa, about 25km from here, that the Nepali seat reservation issue must be discussed with the Union government in all its technical details. “We have been constantly raising the issues on seat reservation, and also the granting of tribal status to 12 (Nepali-speaking) communities,” he said.
