Politics in Darjeeling has again started circling a tripartite meeting, which the Centre had promised to hold three years back but hasn’t.

New Delhi last convened a tripartite meeting — involving central and state governments and stakeholders of the Darjeeling hills — on October 12, 2021, and promised to hold another one in November of the same year.

The hills have been waiting for the meeting since then.

On Tuesday, Gorkhaland Activist Samhua (GAS), an apolitical body from the hills rooting for the separate state, plastered posters across Darjeeling town demanding that Gorkhaland be the only topic on the agenda at the
upcoming talks.

Rumours about the tripartite meeting have been circulating after Darjeeling BJP MP Raju Bista recently met Union home minister Amit Shah.

“I met senior home ministry officials in Delhi even today (on Tuesday) and letters detailing the nitty-gritty of the meeting are likely to be issued within the next two or three days,” Bista told The Telegraph.

The BJP had promised a “permanent political solution” or PPS without defining the term and tribal status to 11 Gorkha communities. However, little headway has been made in the two promises in the past few years.

“This is why we want to remind the stakeholders that the meeting must have the specific agenda of Gorkhaland,” said Kishore Pradhan, convener, GAS.

The BJP-led Centre doesn’t have a track record of fulfilling the promise to convene such meetings.

On September 26, 2017, Bimal Gurung-led Gorkha Janmukti Morcha had ended the 104-day strike in the Darjeeling hills after then Union home minister Rajnath Singh had promised to convene a tripartite meeting within a “fortnight”.

The meeting was never called during Singh’s tenure, which ended in 2019.

During the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP again promised a permanent political solution which people in the hills interpret as a Gorkhaland state and tribal status to
11 communities.

After the 2019 general election, Amit Shah became the Union home minister.

Finally, the Centre convened a meeting on August 7, 2020, but changed the agenda from “issues related to Gorkhaland to issues related to GTA”. With the BJP’s allies in the hills opposing the agenda, the meeting was called off.

The talks were finally held on October 7, 2020, but from the hills, only representatives of Bimal Gurung’s party were present.

The next tripartite meeting, which was chaired by Union home minister Amit Shah, was held on October 12, 2021, on “issues related to the Gorkhas”.

A Press Information Bureau release after the meeting said the Union home minister “has decided to call for the second round of talks in the presence of the senior officials of Government of West Bengal in November 2021”.

However, the meeting wasn’t convened.

“The next meeting should be held between the Centre and the political parties of Darjeeling only,” said Pradhan.