Gorkha’s GTA area demand on table today

 ENS : Kolkata, Tue May 29 2012The high-power committee headed by Justice Shyamal Sen will hold a meeting tomorrow to decide on the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha’s demand for inclusion of new territory in the Gorkha Territorial Administration. The date for final recommendations of the committee is drawing near, but Justice Sen has asked for time till end-July to submit his report. The delimitation of constituencies of the existing area of \Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC) has been completed, and as of now the GTA has 45 constituencies where the GTA election will be conducted. The 45 constituencies include 23 constituencies from Darjeeling, 13 constituencies from Kalimpong and nine constituencies from Kurseong. However, the notification for the election in the GTA area is yet to be issued and the election date is yet to be declared. The May 29 meeting was called almost after a month after the committee received the mouza-level language-based census data for 400 mouzas that were demanded by the GJM. A senior official of the panel, however, said, “The agenda is yet to be prepared for tomorrow’s meeting. The ‘present status’ of the committee’s work will be discussed, and that might include the status of mouzas that are likely to be included in the GTA.” The GJM’s senior leadership, however, is eagerly awaiting the meeting. “We are expecting to get a picture about the territory of the GTA tomorrow,” said Harka Bahadur Chetri, GJM MLA. The GJM had agreed to elections in the hills after a meeting on March 25 with Mamata Banerjee. The Morcha had earlier insisted that elections could not be held till the territory of the GTA was fixed. The state government then adopted a five-point resolution in which it was decided that elections to the three hill sub-divisions of Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong could be held in the end of June or early July.