GJM warns ‘militant’ stir for Gorkhaland

Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) chief Bimal Gurung on Wednesday threatened to launch a "militant" agitation in the Darjeeling hills for its demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland, a day after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee firmly ruled out any division of the state.

Raising the Gorkhaland issue in the midst of the chief minister's visit to Darjeeling, Gurung said the state government has been trying to "suppress the demands of the Hill people".

Speaking to mediapersons after inaugurating a bridge at Bijonbari, Gurung made a brief reference to the Telangana statehood demand and said, "Our movement is old and we will fight for its realisation."

When asked for the nature of the movement he wants to launch, Gurung said, "The police may open fire at us. We may die. But we will fight for realising our demand for separate Gorkhaland."

Taking exception to the chief minister's warning on Tuesday that she could be both "rough and tough", the GJM president, who shared the dais with her , said the state government was trying to act "in a dictatorial manner".

Gurung, who is the chief executive of Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), said the state government did not care to consult GTA principal secretary while organising the North Bengal festival. "The GTA has been empowered and it can hold such a festival. But it was not so in reality. We will not allow any dictatorship on us which the state government seeks to impose on us," he said.

Govt-GJM honeymoon over, says CPM

Saying that the "honeymoon' between the GJM and the Mamata Banerjee government was over, Opposition leader Surya Kanta Mishra on Wednesday said the "opportunist" Trinamool Congress' hurry in forging a pact with the Hill party had created a problem. "At the very outset we had opposed it. We had demanded an all-party meeting, but that was turned down by the government," Mishra said.

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