The 207th birth anniversary celebrations of Nepali poet Bhanubhakta Acharya, the first official public function of the state government in the hills on Tuesday, had Anit Thapa as an invitee but not other prominent hill names such as Binay Tamang and Bimal Gurung.
Both the Tamang-Thapa faction and the Gurung group of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha are allies of Trinamul.
Trinamul leaders from the hills were also not invited to the Chowrasta event jointly hosted by the state information and cultural affairs department and the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA).
The guest list at the poet’s birth anniversary, seen as a barometer to “closeness to the state government”, was under intense scrutiny by political observers.
The other political invitees included Gautam Deb, administrator, Siliguri Municipal Corporation, and Bulu Baraik, minister of state, backward classes and tribal department. Thapa does not hold any official position in the government.
Apart from these leaders, Surendra Gupta, GTA principal secretary, David Pradhan, GTA secretary, S. Poonambalam, DM, Darjeeling, Dr Santosh Nimbalkar, the SP of Darjeeling, C.K. Rai, the president of the Nepali Sahitya Sammelan, and Surya Shrestha, the secretary of the literary organisation, were among the handful of invitees.
Administrative sources said “no formal invite” was sent from the district level. “Invitations were probably sent out from higher-ups,” said one.
Baraik, the only speaker among the guests, said: “Two days back I was asked by chief minister Mamata Banerjee to attend this event.”
Later, Thapa thanked the chief minister on Facebook: “I am grateful for the special invitation,” he wrote.
Thapa was at the helm of GTA till Bengal went to polls after which his tenure as chairman of the board of administrators, GTA, was not extended by the state.
After more than two hours of the official event, Gurung reached Chowrasta to pay his tribute to the statue of the poet. Gurung did not comment on the guest list.
Tuesday’s development also comes at a day after Roshan Giri, general secretary of the Bimal camp returned to Darjeeling from Calcutta after meeting Abhishek Banerjee, the number two in the Trinamul and host of Bengal ministers like Bratya Basu, Moloy Ghatak and Chandrima Bhattacharya.
Giri, however, had admitted that their delegation comprising the party’s Kalimpong district president Dr R.B. Bhujel and youth wing president Prakash Gurung, had not met Mamata Banerjee.
“It is a major snub to Bimal Gurung,” said a leader of the Thapa camp.
