Sensing the growing resentment among the public over the indefinite bandh in the Darjeeling hills, Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) leaders from are trying to generate sympathy for their demand for a separate Gorkhaland among non-Gorkhas.
Trying to gain public support for its demand
KOLKATA:Sensing the growing resentment among the public over the indefinite bandh in the Darjeeling hills, Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) leaders from Wednesday are trying to generate sympathy for their demand for a separate Gorkhaland among non-Gorkhas.
At different relay hunger strike venues in the Dooars for instance, GJM leaders are telling the people that the movement is neither in support of the Gorkhas nor against any non-Gorkhas. “We have nothing against Bengalis or Marwaris or Gujaratis. The movement is for all people of the region who had been subjected to negligence for years,” are the main themes of the sessions.
Some GJM leaders also alleged that the CPI(M) and the West Bengal government were deliberately giving their peaceful and democratic movement an anti-people portrait and branding it as anti-nationalist or anti-Bengali or anti-Sikkimese.
GJM general secretary Roshon Giri has stated that none of the protesters has anything against Bengalis. “We just want our own state and we are raising our demand in a peaceful and democratic manner. We request both the Union and the state government to honour our rightful demand,” he said.
The party’s president, Bimal Gurung, also alleged that some vested interests were trying to give their movement an anti-Bengali colour.
The GJM leadership is also quite aware of the opposition to the protests among the people of Sikkim, where supply of essential commodities has been totally disrupted in the last two days as GJM supporters blocked the national highway connecting the state to the rest of the country. After Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Union broadcasting minister Priyaranjan Dasmunshi jointly expressed concern over the suffering of the people of Sikkim because of the strike, the GJM leadership issued a counter statement stating it had nothing to hold either against Sikkim or Bengal.
The GJM has also visibly softened its stand of not holding any one-to-one discussion with the state government, after Bhattacharjee on Tuesday gave a fresh call to discuss the issue without any pre-conditions. A senior GJM leader told DNA that since the state government had kept its invitation to talk open, the party was discussing its next course of action.
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