People's Democracy

A GLUT of merriment had overwhelmed the GNLF leadership in an almost leering manner on the inclusion and identification of areas under the Darjeeling hill council in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. There were flashes of an all-too-rare bonhomie in the usually petulant pattern of behaviour of the GNLF chief Ghising.

The invoking of the Sixth schedule follows the tripartite meeting between the union government, the Bengal Left Front government, and Ghising as the chairman of the hill council.

Things returned to the sordid usual soon after, though. Over and above of demurring about not getting to have Siliguri in the new delimitation of the hill council area, Ghising started to sing a different, if familiar, tune once he was out of Delhi and the charmed circle of the Congress.

Meeting media persons in Darjeeling on November 9, the GNLF supremo made no bones about his intentions to have the matter of delimitation ‘again looked into’ with the sole purpose of including new areas and locales in the hill council administration.

Ominously, he threw carelessly to the winds his earlier promises and again raised the bogey of a separate state of Gorkhaland at a rally held on December 11 in Darjeeling. He described the opposition in the hills as well as media persons as ‘demons’ and stated that no retribution followed the ‘killing of demons.’

Pointing to the image of the kukri on the GNLF flag and emblem, Ghising bellowed that the image had ‘a definite purpose and utility.’

The goons in the rank-and-file of the GNLF got the message loud and clear. From the next day, they pounced on CPI(M) workers especially in the Kalijhora and Sevak area where the GNLF machinates to undermine the burgeoning popular support behind the CPI(M).

When contacted about the incidents, Ghising chose to describe the assaults as ‘a legitimate extension of the joy that people had felt at the inclusion of hill council areas under the Sixth Schedule.’

In the meanwhile, the CPI(M) has welcomed the inclusion of hill areas in the Sixth Schedule and had said that the step would help the quickening of the pace of economic and cultural growth of the area.