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Ready for talks with GJM, says Buddhadeb

KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has said that his government is ready for talks with the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM), which has launched a movement for a separate State to be carved out of the Darjeeling hills and certain areas contiguous to it.

“What do you want from the State government and from Delhi?” Mr. Bhattacharjee asked GJM in an interview to a Bengali news television channel. “They have not given any memorandum of their demands to the State government so far and we are unaware of what they want.”

Political differences notwithstanding, the Congress is one with the West Bengal government on the issue of preserving the unity of the State, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi, said here on Sunday while referring to the developments in the Darjeeling hills.

“We shall not fight on petty political grounds with the Chief Minister on the matter of unity of West Bengal,” he added.

Mr. Dasmunsi, however, felt that the handling of the “very sensitive” situation in the region by the State government so far had been “improper and immature.”

The Congress was ready to cooperate with the State government in solving the stalemate in the region but “the Chief Minister should take all political parties into confidence to explain the latest situation there [in the Darjeeling hills],” Mr. Dasmunsi said. “We shall all extend out support to him and see that the crisis is not just defused but resolved.”

He also urged the GJM leadership to sit for discussions on their demands with the State government.

The indefinite hunger strike by GJM activists in the Darjeeling hills that began on May 1 was lifted on Saturday following the local authorities granting permission to the GJM to hold a rally in Siliguri.

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