Bengal won't be divided as long as I'm alive, says Mamata Banerjee

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee sent out a stern warning to the Centre and the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) alike, saying that as long as she was alive, she would not allow the division of Bengal.

"If you ask for food, clothes, shelter, education and other services, I will give it to you to the best of our resources. But if you want me to approve of the division of the state to create a new state, I will not allow it as long as I am alive. I have always been against such divisions," she said at a public meeting at Burdwan district on Thursday. Alluding to the Centre, she lashed out saying, "You are not being able to solve the problem in Kashmir, you are looking at Darjeeling."

In another development on Thursday, sources at the Governor House said that the state had accepted the resignation of Bimal Gurung from the position of the chief executive of Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA).

In the hills, as the GJM-called bandh entered day 15, an all-party meeting had been convened by the GJM on Thursday. The meeting, which lasted for about five and a half hours at a hotel in Kalimpong, saw the participation of nearly all major political and non-political organisations of the hills. It had been decided in the meeting that the bandh in the hills would continue. A committee — Gorkhaland Movement Coordination Committee — has been formed to plan the future roadmap for the movement demanding a separate Gorkhaland. Kalyan Diwan, vice-president, GJM Central Committee, would be the convenor of the committee, whereas DK Pradhan, the president of GJM's Darjeeling sub-divisional committee, would assist Diwan.

"The 30-member committee will lead the movement from hereon. We have demanded the intervention of the Centre in this issue and if the Centre is not responding, our senior leaders will put up an indefinite hunger strike," said GJM assistant general secretary Binay Tamang.

The term of the GTA ends next month. After all the 44 elected members of the GTA had put in their papers, there would either be a fresh election to the GTA, or the state would appoint an administrator to the semi-autonomous governing body.

Swipe over gst

Mamata on Thursday fired a fresh salvo at the Centre over the implementation of GST.
“First it was demonetisation. I had said before and I still say that in the future, a huge scam around demonetisation will be unearthed,” she said.