Calcutta, June 16: The Bengal government will place a “flexibly worded” draft resolution at tomorrow’s all-party meeting as part of its efforts to draw the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) to talks and defuse the situation in the hills.
The draft will remain silent on “Gorkhaland” but will sound more accommodating than chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s invitation to the parties. The invitation had referred to “the protection of the state’s integrity”.
The draft, drawn up by the cabinet core committee today, dropped the words “rajyer akhandata raksha korte (to protect the state’s integrity)” and replaced them with a more “flexible” sentence “rajyer abasthan atut rekhe” (keeping the contours of the state unchanged).
“The resolution will be silent on whether we are accepting Gorkhaland or not. The government does not want to sound rigid since we are keen on talks with the Morcha and return of peace and normality. Hence the flexible attitude,” PWD minister Kshiti Goswami said later.
The chief minister had earlier urged the Morcha to drop the demand for Gorkhaland and join the talks but the organisation has so far linked its participation to the inclusion of statehood on the agenda.
Government sources said today’s semantics reflected differences within the Left Front. The sources said the changes were made mainly on the insistence of CPI veteran Nandagopal Bhattacharya, who was supported by Forward Bloc’s Naren De.
Although the chief minister as well as Goswami wanted to add the word “bhougolik (geographical)” to the draft resolution to convey more clearly the resolve to protect the state’s integrity, the CPI leader objected.
He felt that this was “already implied” in the text and the inclusion of the word would only help the Morcha find an excuse to skip talks that were originally scheduled a day after the all-party meeting. The chief minister accepted this, apparently to avoid any controversy within the Front.
But the acceptance also underscored a “mutual understanding” between the state and the Centre to deal with the renewed Gorkhaland agitation “cautiously and patiently”, a minister said.
“That’s why the draft resolution will not carry references to the Centre’s role or blame it in any way for the situation in the hills. The chief minister also made it clear to us today that he wouldn’t object if the Centre convenes a tripartite meeting,’’ another minister said.
As the chief minister has admitted “lack of development during Subhas Ghising’s regime” and offered to discuss “greater autonomy for the hills”, the resolution will call for “more administrative and financial powers”.
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oh after they gave autonomy to ghishing i think this is CPM govt's second attempt to get an eye-wash campaign pertaining to the hill people. I guestion the Bengal CPM led govt. - Name one commendable development done in the hills by the present CPM Bengal Govt.? Its negligible. Everything is so much neglected and the power they gave to ghisingh was in namesake only - actually there were no real powers vested onto ghisingh.
Same tactics is again being laid down again, but there is a whole lot of difference between the 80's hill people and the people living in present times.
What real autonomy can Bengal give? Can Bengal give away tea and tourism completely to the hill autonomy? The word "complete" means everything, from head offices to auction centers (tea).
Bengal will be a mere skeleton without Darjeeling and the hills. What is Bengal biggest industry, its the Darjeeling tea industry which turns out to be in crores and guess what not a single penny is sent back to Darjeeling apart from the worker daily wages of about Rs. 45 a day. Why wouldn't the hill people want to separate from the autocratic Bengal Govt.
Development is nil and the only developed areas in Bengal are the plains thronged by other ethnic people.
Darjeeling hills comprises of people totally different from the rest of Bengal and the Bengal govt. has never tried to understand the feelings of the Nepalese community. They have always been neglected and their homes underdeveloped. How can sikkim advance so much and Darjeeling cannot? Its the state's attention that comes into role. Its like the British era, take away the raw materials from a place and reverse back the finished goods for sale to the same area.
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