Ghisingh stepped down as Care Taker of DGHC

March 10: GNLF chief Subash Ghisingh today resigned as caretaker administrator of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC), ending a 20-year rule that had swiftly lost popular support in the last few months because of its failure to push the statehood demand.

In the Assembly, three GNLF legislators raised the demand for Gorkhaland during mention hour and staged a walkout. Later, two of them — Pranay Rai and Gaulan Lepcha — told reporters that they had resigned from their party and formed a group called GNLF (Rebels).

The third MLA, Shanta Chhetri, said she would remain with the GNLF.

Ghisingh, down with a flu, signed and handed over the resignation letter addressed to Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to Darjeeling district magistrate and DGHC principal secretary Rajesh Pandey at the WBSEDCL Inspection Bungalow at Second Mile off Sevoke Road in Siliguri around 11.10am.

“I cannot speak on the content of the letter. I will forward it to the state government,” Pandey said after coming out of the bungalow where the GNLF chief has been staying since March 6.

In Calcutta later in the day, the chief minister said he had received Ghisingh’s resignation letter and accepted it. He added that Jalpaiguri divisional commissioner B.L. Meena would take over as the DGHC caretaker administrator tomorrow.

A source revealed that the 10-line resignation letter, drafted by Pandey upon Ghisingh’s instruction, mentioned that the GNLF chief was eligible to continue in the post till March 24. “He has said in the letter that considering the current state of affairs in the hills and a request from the chief minister, he preferred to step down,” the source said.

The district magistrate said the GNLF leader would continue to get Z-category security cover from the state.

The septuagenarian leader stayed away from reporters. “He is likely to leave for Darjeeling on Thursday and is expected to talk to the media before that,” the source said.

This is the first time since the formation of the DGHC in 1988 that Ghisingh is not in any administrative post of the council. “All these years, he was very busy with administrative duties,” said Dawa Pakhrin, the president of the Kalimpong branch of the GNLF. “From today, he is free and can devote more time to the party. We expect a meeting soon where our future course of action to fight for a separate state will be planned.”

However, leaders of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, currently spearheading the movement for Gorkhaland, said Ghisingh would find it difficult to garner support in the hills.