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Gorkha leaders to meet Buddhadeb tomorrow

Special Correspondent

Kolkata: Leaders of the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) that has called for the creation of a separate State to be carved out of the Darjeeling hills and certain areas contiguous to it in West Bengal are set to hold talks with Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee over their demand.

“A meeting with the Chief Minister has been scheduled for May 22,” Roshan Giri, GJM general secretary, told The Hindu over the telephone from Darjeeling on Tuesday.

It comes in the wake of an invitation for talks from Mr. Bhattacharjee’s secretariat that was communicated to the GJM leadership by B.L. Meena, Divisional Commissioner, Jalpaiguri, Mr. Giri said.

“Our main demand is the creation of a Gorkhaland State and that is expected to be the focus of the coming discussions,” he said.

The GJM leadership sent a memorandum to the Chief Minister on May 6, two days after he told a local television channel that his government was ready for talks but had not been officially intimated by the GJM of its demands.

“What do you [they] want from the State government and from Delhi”? Mr. Bhattacharjee had asked. “They have not given any memorandum of their demands to the State government so far and we are unaware of what they want,” he added.

Once the GJM makes clear its demands through a memorandum, the State government can sit for talks with the party’s leadership; if necessary the discussions can also be held in Delhi, the Chief Minister had said.

In the memorandum, the GJM leadership had expressed the hope “that it will not be too long when the case of Gorkhaland will be examined in a new perspective and ways will be evolved to justify a separate State.”

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