The Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha (Bimal Gurung camp) today said that they stressed on talks with the Centre on the issue of Gorkhaland and not the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA).

The Morcha faction today sat for talks in Delhi under the chairmanship of G Kishan Reddy, the Union Minister of State in the Ministry of Home Affairs.

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While the Ministry had earlier said the meeting would discuss “issues related to Gorkhaland,” it later issued a corrigendum, stating that the talks would focus on the GTA instead. Following the meeting in Delhi today, the Gurung camp also claimed that the Centre will call another meeting soon after discussions with Home Minister Amit Shah. “The delegation raised the demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland and granting Scheduled Tribe status to 11 Gorkha communities,” Morcha leader Lopsang Yolmo Lama said in a press release posted in their social media group today.

“When the issue of GTA was raised, the delegation submitted that the delegation was there to discuss the statehood demand and grant of Scheduled Tribe status and not the GTA, since the MoA signed between the Union of India, Government of West Bengal and Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha in 2011 was not honoured by the state of West Bengal,” he added.

The release further stated that the delegation also submitted a detailed memorandum on the “irregularities, interferences and obstacles committed by the state government, thereby rendering the GTA defunct.”

It also said that all elected members of the GTA had resigned en masse in 2017, rejecting the body. It said that a memorandum on the issue of Gorkhaland being the oldest statehood demand in India, along with various materials supporting the demand, was also submitted in the meeting.

“The Minister, after giving Delegation says another round of talks soon; state govt officials skip meeting a patient audience, assured the delegation that the government would consider all the materials presented before it and would announce the next meeting after speaking with the Union Home Minister Amit Shah and would brief him about the contents of today’s meeting,” said Mr Lama.

According to the release, the seven-member delegation today was led by Mr Lama, with the meeting held between the Union Minister of State for Home, Union Home Secretary and other senior officials of the Home Ministry. They said that officials of the West Bengal government, though invited, did not attend the meeting today.

The Morcha (Gurung faction) had asked a representative each of the Communist Party of Revolutionary Marxist (CPRM) and the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) to join their delegation and be part of the meeting, but they also abstained from it after the subject of the meeting was changed to “issues related to GTA.”

GNLF wants GTA gone

A meeting of the GNLF core committee was held in Darjeeling today to discuss the development. “A meeting was held today to discuss the way the subject of the meeting was changed by the Centre, which shows their negligence towards the Gorkhas. We want that such a things are not repeated and demand that the signatories of the GTA agreement, the Bimal camp and the Centre scrap the GTA. The next meeting should be held on a permanent political solution and the dialogue should be opened before 2021,” party spokesperson Mahendra Chettri said.

Thapa questions Delhi meeting

On the other hand, Morcha (Binoy Tamang camp) leader Anit Thapa said, “When Bimal Gurung was running the GTA, it was alright, and when the tenure of the GTA was ending, he started an agitation on Gorkhaland as the same GTA was not proper. What is the reason for them to attend a GTA meeting today, while shouting for Gorkhaland and saying that he will come back?”

Mr Thapa further said that it was Mr Gurung who had derailed the Gorkhaland agitation and the way the BJP was fooling the people was evident by this latest development.