Delhi works on hill accord

ARCHIS MOHAN

Gurung: Caught in ‘power tussle’?
New Delhi, Feb. 8: The Centre hopes to ink an accord with the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha at the next tripartite talks on Gorkhaland, the date of which will be announced after a meeting on Wednesday.

The Centre and the Bengal government have offered to enhance the powers of the DGHC. After the third round of talks in August 2009, it was agreed that the DGHC Act of 1988 would be repealed provided the Morcha and the state proposed an alternative set-up.

The governments may even agree to replace the DGHC by a body with more area under its administration and increased executive/legislative powers. The date for the fifth round of tripartite talks will be announced after consultations at the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs on February 10.

Home ministry sources today hinted that an agreement with the Morcha may be reached at the fifth round of talks. “If not for the Telangana issue, home secretary G.K. Pillai could have returned from Darjeeling with an agreement after the fourth round itself,” said a ministry official. Trouble in Andhra Pradesh had made the Centre cautious about its engagement with the Morcha then.

Sources also confirmed that the Centre had been in constant touch with the Morcha leadership, particularly party president Bimal Gurung.

The Morcha had demanded the fifth round of talks within 45 days of the fourth round held on December 21. Sources in the home ministry said, after the deadlines expired on February 6-7, a message was sent to the Morcha to postpone the agitation citing the cabinet committee meeting on February 10.

“We understand Gurung’s anxiety. Other GJM (Morcha) leaders are breathing down his neck. There is power tussle there,” said an official.

“A separate Gorkha state is out of the question. None of the three political parties in West Bengal — the CPM, Congress and the Trinamul Congress — are in favour of a separate Gorkha state. How will the resolution be passed in the Assembly,” said the official.

On Sunday, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee told a chief ministers’ conference in Delhi that the state government had not accepted the demand for Gorkhaland but was willing to enhance the DGHC’s powers.

“The agitation has been peaceful in the hills but every attempt by the Morcha to spread out to the plains has given rise to ethnic clashes,” said Bengal chief minister Bhattacharjee.