People's Democracy

WEST BENGAL

CPI (M) Wants Democracy To Return In

The Hill Areas Of Darjeeling

 B Prasant

BENGAL CPI(M) has declared unequivocally that its strongly demands the restoration of democracy in the hills of the Darjeeling district. The elections to the Darjeeling hill council approach fast; and yet, the unpopular and discredited chief of the GNLF, Subhas Ghising clings to his way of pressurising the state government into agreeing to a postponement of the elections that he knows he is sure to lose in a massive manner.

Following the meeting between Bengal chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and the union home minister, Shivraj Patil on February 24, Ghising kept up his blustering mood in Darjeeling where he again said that the “people of the hills yearns for ‘Gorkhaland.’” When pressed further on this score by media persons, Ghising lost his temper (something he does quite often now, whether by design or otherwise) and cried out that “nobody either in the hills or on the plains gets to be harmed if Gorkhaland is formed,” before crying off and stalking away from the press meet.

In the circumstances, the district secretariat of the Darjeeling unit of the CPI(M) met on February 25 and discussed the situation in the hills in some detail.  Elsewhere, at Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan in Kolkata the same day, Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M), Jyoti Basu said that there would be an election held for the hill council and he rejected the idea of a ‘Gorkhaland.’ 

Basu dubbed as an unqualified and motivated lie the misinformation Ghising had been engaged in spreading about how Basu had supported the ‘Gorkhaland’ idea back in the mid-1980’s when the separatist agitation first began under Ghising’s tutelage and which could be checked only by the determined efforts both of the Bengal Left Front government that Basu headed as chief minister, and the CPI(M) many of whose workers were martyred at the hands of the separatist extremists.

From the secretariat meeting, the CPI(M) leaders, Sandopal Lepcha, Ananda Pathak, and Jibesh Sarkar emerged to tell the media that peace and development and not ‘Gorkhaland’ constituted the principal issue for the people of the Darjeeling district, now as earlier. The CPI(M) leadership were firm in their opinion that should elections be postponed for any reason to the hill council, the term of the council must not be extended, and that even if an administrator was appointed, the polls should never be deferred for too long a period.

On February 26, a meeting of five political parties was held on the emerging issues in the hills of Darjeeling.  Held at Siliguri, the participating parties were: CPI(M), CPI, CPRM, Gorkha League, and GNLF (CKP). Ananda Pathak presided over the meeting. The leadership present included: Ananda Pathak, Sandopal Lepcha, and Ashok Bhattacharya of the CPI(M), Dawa Lama and Saon Rai of the CPRM, Ujjwal Chaudhuri and Harisadhan Ghosh of the CPI, Madan Tamang of the Gorkha League, and D K Pradhan and C K Pradhan of the GNLF (CKP).

Explaining the decisions of the meeting, Ashok Bhattacharya said that the leaders of the parties desired that elections to the hill council should be held as early as possible. Ghising would never be accepted as the administrator of the council.  Ghising, the meeting felt, had no right to cling to his hill council chairmanship.  Ghising must take part in the polls or tender resignation as the chairman of the council. Decisions of the meeting were arrived at based on full consensus, the leaders of all the parties taking part in the meeting assured representatives of the media. (INN)