Asok warns of replay - I am just a medium to achieve Gorkhaland: Morcha chief

Siliguri: People spearheading the movement for Gorkhaland will face a Subash Ghisingh-like situation one day, Asok Bhattacharya, the Bengal urban development minister, today warned.

“Once Ghisingh (the GNLF chief) was worshiped like God and the hill people used to follow him whatever he asked them to do. When he had ordered them to worship stones, they did so. The situation is same in the hills now. When Bimal Gurung (the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha president) directed the people to wear dawra sural and chowbandi choli, they obliged him,” Bhattacharya said.

The CPM leader said the GNLF leader’s popularity was at the top when he was leading the Gorkhaland movement. “But nobody knows where he is now. If he was the true leader, he would not have faced such a situation.”

Bhattacharya, who was addressing a gathering at Salugara, 7km from here, said: “Same will happen to those who are presently organizing the (statehood) movement in the hills, because they are also doing what Ghisingh had once done.”

Changing number plates, blocking the roads, not allowing opposition leaders to speak and threatening them to leave the hills cannot be called a democratic movement, Bhattacharya said.