Mamata Banerjee today said she would seek an appointment with the Prime Minister to “discuss” the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) issue and blamed the Centre for the “delay” in forming the administrative set-up for the Darjeeling hills.
“I am trying to get an appointment with the Prime Minister to discuss, among other things, the GTA and the granting of backward status to Darjeeling,” the chief minister said. She said the “tentative date” of meeting Manmohan Singh was February 22 or 23 or 24. Mamata today announced that she would visit Darjeeling on February 28 with “some more projects”.
After a meeting with leaders of the Morcha, which has threatened to relaunch its statehood agitation if the GTA is not implemented by March 27, in Siliguri, Mamata said: “They (Morcha) are offended and I agree with them. The GTA agreement was signed on July 18, 2010, after a tripartite meeting with the Centre. Clause by clause, clarifications that the Centre had sought on the GTA were given. Even after that, the Centre is delaying the clearance.”
State government sources said the Centre was yet to give its nod to the GTA Act, which is awaiting the President’s consent. The deadline of the committee formed by the state to chalk out the territorial reach of the GTA was extended by six months in January-end.
Mamata has put the ball in the Centre’s court at a time the Morcha has set a deadline for the setting up of the GTA. Trinamul leaders close to Mamata said the chief minister needed to have “something concrete” to offer to the people in the hills before her visit there. “So she has planned to meet the Prime Minister before her visit to the hills,” a leader said.
Morcha general secretary Roshan Giri said: “We heard what she had to say. But we will stick to our demand.”
Corruption glare
Mamata today told party colleagues that “a clean and honest image of Trinamul” has to be projected “ahead of the panchayat polls”. “Corruption will not be tolerated. We will have to ask those involved in corruption to mend their ways instead of driving them out of the organisation,” she said.
Source: The Telegraph
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