The Hindu : Front Page : Darjeeling back in bandh mode

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Tuesday, Jun 17, 2008
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Darjeeling back in bandh mode

Special Correspondent

West Bengal Cabinet core committee meets to discuss issue

— Photo: AFP

TIGHT SECURITY: CRPF personnel inspect vehicles and passengers at an entry point to Siliguri on Monday.

KOLKATA: Even as the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) resumed its bandh in the Darjeeling hills on Monday evening, the core committee of the West Bengal Cabinet concurred on the need for discussing outstanding issues with the GJM leadership to restore peace.

The committee meeting came a day ahead of all-party talks convened by Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to find ways of ending the stalemate, including grant of greater regional autonomy.

Trinamool to stay away

The principal Opposition, Trinamool Congress, and its ally, the Socialist Unity Centre of India, will not participate in the talks.

The GJM leadership, which rejected an invitation from Mr. Bhattacharjee for talks on June 18, has called a parallel meeting of all political parties in Darjeeling for Tuesday to discuss its Statehood demand. It has also asked the people of the hills to be prepared for a bandh that could last longer than any protest called there before.

“No time limit”

“There is no time limit for the bandh but the people have been asked to stock 45 days’ provisions,” GJM general secretary Roshan Giri told The Hindu over telephone from Darjeeling, a few hours before the resumption of the protest. The resumed bandh was originally called on June 10 and was relaxed the next evening. But unlike on the earlier occasion, Siliguri and the Dooars are not covered by the protest. Tea gardens, cinchona plantations and educational institutions will remain open.

Mr. Giri said the GJM “will settle for nothing less than a separate State.”

The question of withdrawing the bandh will arise only after a tripartite meeting, involving the Centre — at which the GJM is given an opportunity to carry forward the Gorkhaland demand — is held, according to a section of its leadership.

Sikkim has sent a note to the Union Home Ministry urging that National Highway 31A, which links the State to the rest of the country, be kept open during the bandh period.

A stretch of the highway, which passes through the Darjeeling hills, is Sikkim’s lifeline.

The State’s legislators met under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Pawan Chamling and an SOS was sent to the Home Minister requesting the Centre to put pressure on the West Bengal government as well as the bandh sponsors to ensure that the highway was kept open, said B.B. Gooroong, Chief Minister’s adviser.

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