DARJEELING HILLS: Public wait for ‘secret’ to end

FROM THE TELEGRAPH


Deolo Tourist Lodge where the Morcha will unveil its ‘secret’ proposal on Monday
Darjeeling, March 14: The ides of March is set to reveal one of the most talked about “secrets” in the hills.

Kalimpong is likely to be swamped by hundreds of people from across the Darjeeling hills, the Terai and the Dooars tomorrow when the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha will reveal its “secret proposal” to the Union government.

Although the document is set to be unveiled at a media conference at Deolo Tourist Lodge, 4km fromKalimpong, Morcha leaders admitted that it would be difficult to prevent supporters from attending the show. “Officially, we are organising a media conference, but representatives of the frontal organisations, subdivisional and the zonal committees will be present. Since people are very inquisitive, we think even a large number of supporters without any portfolio will also attend the conference,” said Binay Tamang, the assistant secretary of the Morcha.

The party has decided to construct a podium for the event. “Our party president will disclose the document after which it will be read out and distributed,” said Tamang.

The document, which contains merely a proposal from the Morcha to the Union government on an interim set-up, will be scrutinised in detail by the party supporters from the Terai and the Dooars.

This is largely because the Morcha president, Bimal Gurung, had earlier told The Telegraph that even though they would not be “leaving the Dooars and the Terai in the set-up, there will be a slight change in the name and territory”.

Many believe that unlike the present map of the area the party wants as Gorkhaland, in which areas right up to the Sankosh river along the Bhutan border have been included, the proposal leaves out places in the Dooars and the Terai, where there is no presence of Nepali people.

However, there have been indications from the Morcha that even the areas in the Dooars and the Terai it wants to include in the new set-up have not yet been agreed upon by the Centre. Tomorrow, the Morcha will also disclose the names of the delegates of the party at the first tripartite meeting at the political level in New Delhi on March 18.