Mamata, GJMM to meet-meeting slated for 14TH, CM to also meet civil society members

SNS, KOLKATA/DARJEELING, 11 JUNE: Chief minister Mamata Banerjee will meet the GJMM leadership on 14 June in a bid to resolve the recent crisis that erupted after the high-power committee granted inclusion of only five mouzas in the Gorkha Territorial Administration (GTA).

Apart from the GJMM leadership, Miss Banerjee will also meet some members of the civil society of Darjeeling on 15 June.

"We have just received the letter from GJMM and we will sit with them on 14 June. The next day some people from the civil society who love the Hills will come to meet me,” said Miss Banerjee who refused to divulge the details about the members of the civil society who will come to meet her. Sources indicated that it might be intellectuals opposed to the violent methods of protest adopted by the GJMM which has jeopardised normal life and development in the Hills.

The chief minister also chose to remind the detractors of the report that “those livings in the Hills and the plains are brothers. We need development at the Hills, that is the slogan”. She refused to comment on the report of the high-power committee or the GTA agreement.

A 21-member GJMM delegation including four party MLAs and the chairmen and councillors of the municipalities in the Hills will meet Miss Banerjee on 14 June.

However, the GJMM has decided to mount pressure on the state government at the same time through mass rallies across the Hills. It was decided that the party's frontal organisations would hold a massive public gathering in Darjeeling which will be addressed by the party president, Mr Bimal Gurung, on 14 June. But with the chief minister's meeting scheduled on the

same day the meeting may not take place on that day.

When asked what would be discussed during the meeting with the chief minister, the GJMM spokesperson and MLA from Kalimpong, Mr Harka Bhahdur Chettri said they would vent their objections against the way the committee submitted the report. “Nowhere was it mentioned in the GTA Act that the chairman would arbitrarily prepare the report. We will tell the chief minister that the way the report was submitted amounts to a breach of confidence. It was a 10-member committee. But the chairman acted as if there was no one else as far as the preparation of the report on the sensitive matter is concerned,” he said.

He further alleged that the report did not abide by the parameters of contiguity, homogeneity, compactness and ground level situation in right measures. “We would cite numerous instances when the parameters had not been taken into account while deciding on the inclusion of mouzas. The report seemed to be a preconceived one with the emphasis on omission than on inclusion,” he said.