Breaking months of mutual coldness Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has extended the long rope to Gorkha Janmukti Morcha but not before iterating Darjeeling’s inseparability from Bengal.
The Chief Minister who earlier announced a host of development projects for Darjeeling hills including tourism, power and road networks on Wednesday reminded that Darjeeling was an inseparable part of Bengal.
“I want peace in Darjeeling without which the main revenue earning industry of tourism will suffer” she said reminding as the queen of hills “Darjeeling is the heart of Bengal.”
She made the statement with GJM chief Bimal Gurung sitting by her side. The Hill party has been demanding a separate Gorkhaland State and had linked it with the creation of a separate Telangana.
Insisting that “development and not partition” was the main issue in Hills Banerjee said the “main focus of the administration should be on the development of the area and not a separate State.”
Banerjee’s ruling Trinamool Congress had always enjoyed good terms with the GJM. But things deteriorated soon after the signing of the GTA Accord when the Hill outfit’s demand to include 400 moujas from the Terrain and Dooars into the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration was turned down by the State Government.
Hostilities between Mamata and Gurung increased when he warned that his party would go all out for separate Gorkhaland if the Centre conceded the demand of Telengana.
Further, Trinamool’s organisational inroads into Darjeeling brought the two parties face to face even as many GJM workers switched over to the Trinamool. Things came to head a few months ago when Banerjee unanimously announced a host of projects in Darjeeling much to the chagrin of Gurung who called it an infringement of the rights of the GTA.
However as the ruling party’s popularity got a beating in the wake of Saradha scam and falling law and order situation in the State it felt urgency of repairing earlier ties. GJM also faced new challenges from a rejuvenating GNlF of Subas Ghising.
In the changed context the Trinamool and Gurung came closer to forge their lost ties. Banerjee who was in the midst of her Darjeeling tour also said “some conspirators had tried to destabilise the chemistry between the GJM and the State Government but we will not let that happen.”