MAMATA IN DOOARS

Bau Bhatt

Jalpaiguri March 13: Mamata Bannerjee, the Bengal Chief Minister eventually poured out her desperation on the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM)-Congress friendship that has been taking its toll in the last couple of months. The Chief Minister who is on her 19^th visit to North Bengal in the last 3 years on Wednesday spiraled that the GJM-Congress friendship in the long run is spoiling the communal harmony in the region. Ironically, didi reframed from naming the Congress party even for a single time during her speech at Chalsa in the Dooars area today.

“They have actually understood that they are not in a position to win even a single seat in the plains of North Bengal in the next Lok Sabha elections. They are now eyeing the seat in the hills for their existence,” said Bannerjee adding that she loves the hills as much as she loves the Dooars. “Don’t get provoked into any sort of communalism. Nobody will face any problem as long as I am there,” she told the gathering present at Chalsa.

The Chief Minister currently shares a thorny relationship with the GJM after she said that Darjeeling will remain a part of Bengal in her own programme in Darjeeling in her last visit. She had also said that she is rough and tough from the dias in a government programme in presence of the GTA chief executive Bimal Gurung who is also the chief of the GJM. The party triggered by Bannerjee’s statements soon declared a ‘Militant agitation’ for a separate state Gorkhaland. The state government in retaliation has now posted CRPF, RAF and IRF in the hills as a precautionary measure in case if any unrest follows in the hills.

The GJM over the past couple of days visited Delhi and met the union ministers including the President of India Pranab Mukherjee. The union ministers assuring more funds for the GTA, a hill body formed last August after an agreement was signed between the hill party, state and central government, urged Gurung to withdraw the agitation. The Morcha returning back from the Delhi withdrew sleuths of agitation like the shutdown of government offices and series of bandhs.

Didi had remained quiet even as the GJM visited Delhi several times. The Chief Minister has also chosed to remain tightlipped yesterday against GJM at Bagdogra Airport.