The Hindu : New Delhi News : GJM calls for dissolution of Gorkha Hill Council

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GJM calls for dissolution of Gorkha Hill Council

Special Correspondent

Kolkata: The Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) leadership has called for dissolution of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC) as part of its movement for the creation of a separate State to be carved out of the Darjeeling Hills and certain areas contiguous to it in West Bengal.

A resolution to this effect will be submitted to the State government after a meeting of the GJM’s central committee scheduled for Thursday, GJM general secretary Roshan Giri told The Hindu over telephone from Darjeeling on Wednesday.

Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had told a GJM delegation here on May 22 that his government was willing to consider investing the DGHC with additional powers for greater autonomy to the region. The GJM leadership turned down the suggestion. “The DGHC has become a hindrance to our call for statehood and has proved a failure to meet the aspirations of the local people. Granting it more powers is not the solution to the present stalemate which can only be resolved with the creation of a separate Gorkhaland state,” Mr. Giri said.

Illogical: Minister

The State’s Minister for Urban Development, Ashok Bhattacharya, who hails from Darjeeling district, dismissed the demand to dissolve the DGHC as “illogical, unjustified and unrealistic.”

The DGHC, presently being run by an administrator, was set up in August 1988. All its councillors had resigned in March 2005 following a call by the then chairman of the body, Subash Ghising, who had claimed that the body had become redundant in the wake of his call for granting Sixth Schedule status to the region — a move that was subsequently opposed by the GJM leadership.

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