Morcha, Barla in joint rural fight

Barla and Gurung at the felicitation at the Gymkhana Club on Monday. Picture by Suman Tamang Darjeeling, Aug. 20: Bimal Gurung today said the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha would contest the panchayat elections and all other polls jointly with John Barla’s group. “We will jointly contest not just the panchayat elections, but all other elections,” Gurung, who is the GTA chief executive, said at an event where Barla was felicitated by an arm of the hill party. The tribal leader, who had yesterday said that his group would contest under the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha symbol, was felicitated by the Morcha-affiliated Janmukti Astai Karmachari Sangathan at the Darjeeling Gymkhana Club. The award was given to Barla for strengthening ties between the Gorkhas and the tribals. Barla said: “The morale of the Gorkha-speaking people living in the Dooars and Terai is at an all-time low. I appeal to you all (Morcha leaders from the hills) to organise a meeting with them to boost their morale.” Morcha supporters were disheartened after the Justice Shyamal Sen committee recommended the inclusion of only five mouzas of the Terai and Dooars in the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration. The Morcha had wanted 396 mouzas to be included. Barla seemed to be voicing the opinion of the Morcha supporters in the plains. “I, despite being a member of the adivasi community, still have faith in your (the Morcha’s) leadership. The Gorkha-speaking people from the plains should have more faith in your leadership,” Barla said. The tribal leader’s political survival depends on the support of the Gorkha-speaking people of the plains, who are second in terms of numbers in the plains after the adivasi community. A chunk of the adivasi people supports the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad — the organisation that expelled Barla for joining hands with the Morcha. When Gurung spoke, he did not mention the Morcha in the Dooars and Terai or reply to Barla’s appeal. He said the three-member fact verification committee, formed by the state government to look into the Morcha’s demand to include more mouzas in the GTA, had started its work. “The fact verification committee has already started their work,” Gurung said. Unlike the Justice Sen committee that had been given a specific deadline to submit its report, no such time limit has been set for the fact verification committee for submission of its report. The Morcha today named a seven-member team that will leave for Calcutta tomorrow. “After the formation of the GTA, it is our duty to call upon the governor. After meeting the governor day after tomorrow, we will go to Delhi to meet the President and the Union home and finance ministers,” Gurung said. The seven members who will be part of the team are Gurung, Ramesh Allay, the deputy chief executive of the GTA, Roshan Giri, Anit Thapa, Ram Bahadur Bhujel, Devendra Sharma and the GTA principal secretary Saumitra Mohan. “It is more of a courtesy call. Discussions on the financial package and the transfer of departments to the GTA are likely to figure during the meetings,” said a member of the delegation. The GTA Sabha is hopeful that notifications on the transfer of departments will be issued by the state government by August 31.