The banned militant group Kamptapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) has renewed its demand for a separate Koch-Kamtapur State out of North Bengal districts and threatened bloodbath if Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee tries to resist that demand.
In a video message reportedly released a day ahead of Banerjee’s visit to North Bengal KLO chief, Jeevan Singha has asked the Chief Minister not to visit the region or prevent the formation of a separate Koch-Kamtapur state because this may lead to dire consequences.
“We appeal to everyone including Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to cooperate us in the formation of a new Koch-Kamtapur state --- which is a rightful demand of the people of this region --- We ask Mamata Banerjee not to set foot in this region or oppose the formation of the new state because if they do so it will lead to disastrous consequences,” Singha who has allegedly been running his organisation from some neighbouring country said.
“The Chief Minister or anyone does not have any constitutional to stop us from exercising our own right … And if they forcibly try to impose their will on us or oppose the statehood demand then there will be bloodbath,” the KLO Chief said.
KLO which was allegedly operating from the adjacent Bhutan mountains had been nearly decimated in a military operation by the Bhutanese government more than a decade ago. Though it had lost its support base then the organization has once again spread its tentacles in the area, police sources say.
Singha’s statement comes a day before the Chief Minister’s North Bengal visit from Tuesday. Banerjee is likely to hold administrative meetings as well as party organisational conferences during her visit, sources said.
Meanwhile, the KLO got support from unlikely quarters even as adding twist to the complicated situation local BJP parliamentarians like Jalpaiguri MP Jayanta Roy and his Alipurduar counterpart John Burla too extended moral support to its statehood demand.
“We believe in non-violence but insofar as the KLO’s stand is concerned we too have been raising this issue for sometime because the region has been left undeveloped by the powers that be for ages … it seems that only a separate state is the answer to this perennial lack of development of this region,” Roy said.
He however chose to play safe with the local Bengalis that too account for a sizeable part of the local population even as he said that the “name of the new state will always depend upon a consensus of the people of the region.” A couple of BJP MLAs of the region too had earlier raised the demand for a separate State.
The BJP’s demand for a separate state is seen in connection with its steadily eroding support base in the region. The saffron party which had won 7 out of 8 North Bengal constituencies (consisting 56 Assembly seats) in 2019 parliamentary elections conceded nearly all of them to the TMC in the last year’s Assembly polls.
Facing tough challenged from the TMC and a resurrecting Left the saffron party’s demand for a separate state is seen as an attempt to reach out to the Rajbangshi-Adivasi-Koch population that constitute the substantial portion of the voters of this region.