The BJP has strongly criticised Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for writing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi opposing the functioning of the office of the interlocutor, appointed to “look into issues of Darjeeling, Dooars and Terai” regions of North Bengal, which were presently run by the autonomous Gorkhaland Territorial Administration.
“The Chief Minister is not only trying to divert the attention of the people from the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls — which is identifying false and dead voters in lakhs — but also she is trying to hide her failures to develop this region in the past 15 years of her rule,” senior BJP leader and former State president Rahul Sinha said.
Banerjee had on Monday wrote to the Prime Minister that “the appointment of an interlocutor to deal with issues already governed by a valid State law is a blatant encroachment upon the federal structure of the nation and an assault on the autonomy of the State of West Bengal…”
This was the second letter of objection the Chief Minister wrote to the Prime Minister against the appointment of Pankaj Kumar, a former deputy national security advisor. Kumar was appointed an “interlocutor and Government representative” to look into the issues of the region.
The earlier letter was written on October 18, “which your office had promptly acknowledged and advised Home Minister to look into,” Banerjee wrote on Monday.
Calling the central decision to appoint and allow the interlocutor to function in the area as unconstitutional, “unilateral and arbitrary action of the Central Government” Banerjee said the step taken by the Centre was “shocking” and interfered with the federal structure of the Constitution. It was “an assault” on the State of Bengal, she wrote.
Another senior BJP leader said that the Chief Minister, who had utterly failed in developing the State and during whose regime “industries had fled and the administration was hit by rampant corruption and scams” was now trying to create a social sentiment and a divide between Gorkhas and the Bengali population.
“She knows that with 45 lakhs dead voters getting identified already and with lakhs of others that constituted her main vote bank in Bengal fleeing back to Bangladesh because of SIR she will not be able to win the next year’s elections unless a political divide is created… this letter is a part of that attempt to create a political divide,” the leader said citing the concluding part of the Chief Minister’s letter that read “the Darjeeling region is an inseparable and integral part of the State of West Bengal. It is governed by the Gorkha Territorial Administration Act, 2011, a law duly enacted by the West Bengal Legislative Assembly and notified on March 12, 2012, after getting the Presidential assent. This Act was designed to ensure self-governance in Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong sub-divisions, and under Section 2(h) of the said Act. Consequently, the Central Government has no jurisdictional competence to appoint any representative or interlocutor in matters pertaining to these regions.”
On the question of alleged central intervention Rahul Sinha said that “it was Mamata Banerjee who had invited the Centre to get signed a new Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council agreement in presence of a then Union Minister… and now she is complaining of central intervention… this is all her political gameplan to avoid defeat in 2026… but she is destined to lose the next elections.”