Gorkha Janmukti Morcha chief Bimal Gurung on Thursday wrote to chief minister Mamata Banerjee requesting her not to hold the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) elections but work out a “permanent political solution” for the hills.
“Today we wrote a letter to chief minister Mamata Banerjee requesting her to work out a permanent political solution instead of holding GTA elections…. Holding elections would go against the democratic spirit as the people of the hills have rejected the GTA,” Gurung, who is an ally of Trinamul, said in Kalimpong.
On Tuesday, Mamata had again spoken of her wish to hold the GTA polls. “...Now Darjeeling is peaceful, I am so happy. Darjeeling started the election process, I am so happy. Next, we will go for GTA election also but before that I will sit will all... and try and adjust with so many parties. We want to see that Darjeeling smiles,” she had said.
A senior leader of Morcha, Lopsang Yolmo, who was the chairman of the GTA Sabha, said his understanding of permanent political solution was the state of Gorkhaland.
Although the BJP government promised a “permanent political solution” in its 2019 Lok Sabha election manifesto and Mamata while campaigning for the Assembly election in 2021 had said in a rally that the BJP-led Centre would never work it out and only the state government would, the exact contours of the "PPS" has neither be defined by the BJP nor Trinamul.
Gurung’s Morcha is now pressing on this point. Yolmo said the Morcha would organise a seminar in Kalimpong on April 2, to discuss the PPS .
Earlier, Roshan Giri, general secretary of the Morcha had talked about a provision under Article 244 (A) of the Constitution. This Article was inserted in the Constitution in 1969 for the formation “of an autonomous state comprising certain tribal areas in Assam” with provision for creating local legislature or council of ministers or both.
Gurung’s party had rejected the GTA when they started the Gorkhaland agitation in 2017. In the hills, the BJP and GNLF are also opposed to it. The GNLF even filed a case against the hill body in Calcutta High Court. However, new hill parties — Hamro Party and the BGPM — are in favour of the GTA elections.
