Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (Binay Tamang faction) leader Anit Thapa, and Raju Bista, the BJP MP of Darjeeling, have traded charges of apathy during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Till April this year, some leaders of GTA claimed that the situation is under control. However, now that Covid cases are being reported across the hills, they have no answer and can’t even be found these days,” the Darjeeling MP said in a news release.

The BJP MP has time again questioned the Mamata Banerjee government and the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), alleging that the state government and the autonomous body had failed to handle the pandemic in the hills and the plains.

Bista said that the hospital for Covid patients set up at Triveni in Kalimpong had poor infrastructure.

Thapa, also the chairperson of the board of administrators of the GTA, has reacted sharply to Bista.

“People across the hills have seen what we and the GTA have done to handle the pandemic. Residents have also seen the role of the MP in this situation,” said Thapa.

The Morcha leader played the son of the soil card, an issue that was raised ahead of the Lok Sabha elections last year as the Tamang faction of the Morcha that allied with Trinamul, fielded Amar Singh Rai, a veteran of Darjeeling hills, against Bista. “I should have asked the MP about his whereabouts these days but I didn’t as it is his prerogative where he stays. But I have realised and I believe residents too have realised that whoever is elected from here should be from the hills,” said Thapa, also the general secretary of Morcha’s Tamang faction.

He said the GTA was doing its best at the Covid hospital in Triveni.

Case against Dilip

North Dinajpur police have filed a case against state BJP president Dilip Ghosh and 26 other leaders of the party for violation of the Disaster Management Act in Raiganj on Tuesday.

Ghosh and others held a party meeting in Hemtabad on Monday to remember Debendra Nath Roy, the BJP MLA of Hemtabad who had been found hanging in July.