The Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) has demanded that Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) leaders Binay Tamang and Anit Thapa stay in home quarantine for 14 days after a security employee of Tamang and another worker at the Morcha office in Darjeeling allegedly tested positive for Covid-19.

Thapa is also the chairman of board of administrators of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA).

Ajoy Edwards, the president of the GNLF Darjeeling branch committee, said: “I’ve heard and verified that a security of Binay daju and a staff at the central office have tested positive. I request Binay daju and Anit daju to stay in home quarantine for 14 days.”

Tamang did not take calls from The Telegraph. There were no statements from his party as well.

The silence, observers maintained, was “surprising”.

The Morcha central committee office at Judge Bazar in Darjeeling, however, remained closed through the day.

Edwards said that their party had welcomed the seven-day hill lockdown since Sunday and cancelled the party’s Gorkhaland Martyrs’ Day event on July 27. The GNLF said that they had even stopped “social work” like distributing tarpaulins.

“However, we find that Binay daju and Anit daju are moving around, attending Shahid Diwas functions and other meetings. This is sad and they are violating norms laid by Anit daju (as GTA board of administrators chairman) and the Darjeeling district magistrate,” said Edwards.

Edwards said they were not engaging in political “one-upmanship” but raising an issue of public concern. “When the two leaders came back from Calcutta we requested them to quarantine themselves like everybody else. They did not heed our request,” said Edwards.

Tamang and Thapa had gone to Calcutta to attend an all-party meeting convened by chief minister Mamata Banerjee on June 24.