New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday assured a Gorkha delegation from Darjeeling, Terrai and Dooars region that the central government is working for permanent peace in the hills. The assurance was made after a 10-member delegation from Darjeeling and Dooars called on Shah at North Block and reiterated their demands.
The Home Ministry began the tripartite talk with an aim to resolve the issues related to the Gorkhas. The Gorkha delegation which was led by BJP's Darjeeling MP Raju Bista was also comprised of MLAs and leaders from the hills. The West Bengal government was represented by State resident commissioner Krishna Gupta.
Home Minister Shah told the delegation that the central government is constantly making efforts to resolve issues related to the Gorkhas. "This is for the first time that without any agitation and bandhs, we had a talk with the Home Minister for more than one hour. Home Minister assured us that centre will look into the matter," said Bista.
He said that in November there will be second talk where senior State government officials from Kolkata will be present. Bista said that they have put forward their demand before the home minister.
"There is no democracy in Darjeeling. No Panchayat election took place since 2001. And neither Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) election took place since 2017. The municipal corporation in Darjeeling is also run by a bureaucrat," said Bista. It may be mentioned here that GTA was formed in 2012 following a tripartite accorded between Central government, state government and Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) leaders.
The delegation from Darjeeling also demanded to grant Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to 11 Gorkha sub-communities. Later, a home ministry spokesperson said that the Gorkha leaders highlighted various issues concerning the Gorkhas and the region.
Significantly, the way the Home Ministry called the tripartite talk in Delhi also raised eyebrows of a section of the people involved with the developments as not even a single leader from the non-BJP party has been invited to the talks.
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