Calcutta, June 17: Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee made a fresh talks offer to the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha but, unlike in the past, said he was not setting “any pre-condition”.
“I am ready for discussions with the Morcha without any pre-condition. My earlier letter to the Morcha also did not mention any. But I will again try to bring them to a dialogue,” Bhattacharjee said at the end of an “all-party” meeting.
Although the government’s letter had not used the word “pre-condition”, it did more or less lay down the parameters within which talks could be held.
The Morcha had then rejected the talks offer because the letter “mentioned only restoration of normality, maintenance of law and order, development of the region and grievances of the people” and not “Gorkhaland”.
Today’s resolution did not mention “protection of the state’s integrity”, but it clearly indicated that discussing Gorkhaland was not on the state’s agenda.
“The expansion of the DGHC’s administrative and financial powers can be considered sympathetically while keeping the present contours of West Bengal unchanged (Paschim Banger bartaman abasthan ke atut rekhe),” the resolution said.
Reacting to the chief minister’s offer of “unconditional talks”, Morcha general secretary Roshan Giri said this evening that the matter would first have to be discussed at “our party meeting”.
The chief minister said the all-party meeting “passed a resolution unanimously seeking political solution through sustained dialogue with patience and tolerance”.
“Today’s meeting is the beginning,’’ Bhattacharjee said. “We don’t want to invite any confrontation. Policing can’t help. Only a political solution will help,’’ he added, indicating that the state would not treat the Morcha’s indefinite bandh as a mere law-and-order problem.
Urging “all sides to maintain peace, amity and normality”, the resolution also asked the state government to show “more initiative for the socio-economic development of the Darjeeling district, including the hills, as well as betterment of the people’s standard of living”.
To drive home the point that the state government and the Centre were together in tackling the Darjeeling issue, Bhattacharjee and Union minister and state Congress chief Priya Ranjan Das Munshi briefed the media jointly.
“The state and the Centre will together find a political solution. I will inform Delhi of the outcome of today’s meeting,’’ Bhattacharjee said.
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