The Bimal Gurung faction of the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha today said that the claim made by leader of the other camp of the party, Binoy Tamang, yesterday about Mr Gurung’s chapter being closed was false. According to the faction, a new chapter will begin after Mr Gurung returns. The faction also asked the Tamang camp to clearly state what transpired in the meeting it held with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata yesterday.

Following the meeting with the CM, Mr Tamang had said that Mr Gurung was nonentity in the Hills and that no discussions were held on him.

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In an audio clip he circulated today, Mr Gurung said: “In the coming days, people from the Terai, Dooars and the Hills will get to understand and know a lot of things. I just want to say that the way some leaders are doing politics should be done properly. How many times will they do politics based on lies? On one hand, they claimed that Bimal Gurung was not discussed in the meeting, while on the other they said that the chapter of Roshan Giri and Bimal Gurung had been closed,” Mr Gurung said.

Though there were doubts about the authenticity of the audio clip earlier, a top Gurung camp leader confirmed that it was recorded and sent by Mr Gurung.

“In politics, no one can say when one goes up or down. I only ask you to say what happened in the meeting as a different thing took place there. This is all being done as they are witnessing meetings of our party being held at different places. You can request us to stop such meetings until you all have settled your things and we will understand,” the audio said.

Mr Gurung added that they all would meet “properly and peacefully in some platform” in the near future.

Separately, in a video clip that went viral on social media today, the Gurung camp’s youth front leader Anil Lochan said, “We know what happened in the meeting yesterday, but the way they are trying to break the spirit of our supporters with their different antics, we appeal to the people to not believe it. We ask the people to keep our support intact as they have been doing for so many years.”

“We also condemn the way that they are claiming that the chapter of Bimal Gurung has closed. They should instead come up in the open with the chapter that began with the (Kolkata) meeting yesterday,” Mr Lochan said. He added that a chapter would open when Mr Gurung returns to the Hills.

Both Mr Lopchan and Mr Gurung also said that the BJP had betrayed them. Mr Lopchan claimed that they would come back to the Hills and restore democracy, while also alleging that the other camp had been trying to stop people who had been displaced during the 2017 agitation from returning homes.

Another leader of the Gurung camp, Prakash Gurung, also said in a video message, “Bimal Gurung will return to the Hills, for which the dates have to be fixed. The environment of terror that is there in the Hills, Terai and Dooars will end now and democracy will be restored. We will return home, which is our right.”

Reacting to some of these statements, Tamang camp leader Alok Kanta Mani Thulung, on the other hand, said that the Gurung camp should ask Miss Banerjee about what transpired in yesterday’s meeting if they think they are close to the CM and if they think she has accepted them.

“They are also trying to play the victim card by saying that they are being stopped from returning to the Hills. But we have never stopped them or said they cannot come back. They are welcome, but they should stop lying. They are claiming that 5,000 have been displaced, but only 52 of them have left the Hills,” he said.