Morcha warning before sermon on discipline - To the Centre next: Gurung

Tribeni, June 15: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha will not hold any further talks with the Bengal government, but approach the Centre with its statehood demand, its president said here today.

Bimal Gurung assured the almost 500-odd people assembled on the banks of the Tribeni — the confluence of the Teesta and the Rangeet, 25km from here — that traders of Siliguri will, when the time comes, beg the people of the hills to buy their goods. He was referring to trucks that were prevented from carrying supplies from the plains to the hills by organisations opposed to the Morcha after the bandh was relaxed on Thursday.

The party president also had a note of warning for Sikkim. He said the Himalayan state’s silence on Gorkhaland demand would prove to be costly for it in the long run. “We will block access to Sikkim. Let us see how its ministers eat.”

The Morcha leader said even though the “Bengal lobby” at the Centre has been voicing its opposition to the Gorkhaland demand, his party would find a way to realise it.

Gurung was referring to the recent statements made by Union ministers Pranab Mukherjee and Priya Ranjan Das Munshi. Both have ruled out any division of Bengal. “The Centre has expressed its willingness to talk to us, but it must send us a formal invite,” the Morcha president said.

Asking his supporters to take out mass rallies on June 17, the day the state government is scheduled to hold an all-party meeting to discuss the problems in the hills, Gurung, warned that at no cost should they digress from the path of non-violence.

“Whatever the provocation, you must maintain discipline.”

Referring to the clashes and blockades in Siliguri, Gurung said these were nothing but an attempt to deflate the Morcha movement.

“Siliguri tried to deprive us, but let me tell you we will make alternative arrangements to solve the problem. We will bring the traders to their knees and compel them to beg us to buy their stuff,” he added.

A Morcha source said after the violence in Siliguri turned almost ethnic last week, there had been talks of retaliation. “The message of Gurung’s speech was ‘do not to pay any heed to such talks’ and maintain the (disciplined) nature of the movement,” the source added.

Unlike the 80s when the Gorkhas in the Dooars felt betrayed when the region was not made part of the DGHC, the community this time is hoping that “history will not be repeated.”

“(GNLF chief Subash) Ghisingh betrayed us. The agitation was as intense in the Dooars as it was in Darjeeling yet we were betrayed and not included even when the DGHC agreement was signed in 1988. We have once again come to the streets in the hope that history will not be repeated,” said Jyoti Subba, central committee member of the Morcha from the Dooars region.