Bharatiya Janata Party’s West Bengal president Dilip Ghosh has said that a separate state of Gorkhaland was never on the agenda of his party and all the BJP is striving for was the development of Gorkhas.
“Gorkhaland was never on our agenda in the past. It is not on our agenda even at present. The people there (in the hills) have a sentiment surrounding it (Gorkhaland). We are committed to the development of the Gorkhas,” Mr Ghosh said at an event launching BJP’s membership drive in north Bengal on Sunday. The remark, which comes almost two months after the Lok Sabha elections. assumes significance as the BJP won the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat with a margin of 4.23 lakh votes.
The BJP manifesto for the 2019 polls had referred to working together for finding “a permanent political solution to the issue of Darjeeling hills, Siliguri Terai and Dooars region.” It had also promised to ensure that 11 Gorkha communities got Scheduled Tribe (ST) status. Asked about the ST status to these communities Mr. Ghosh mistook it to be a question on National Register of Citizens and said that it will be implemented soon in West Bengal like in Assam.
The issue of a separate State of Gorkhaland has been central to the politics of Darjeeling hills since the late 1980s. While the Trinamool Congress has rejected the idea of a separate state to be carved out of Darjeeling hills and its foothills, the BJP has been walking a tight rope on the issue balancing its support base among the hills and in the plains. Any move to support the Gorkhaland demand will make the BJP appear to be favour of division of the State, while rejection of the demand will alienate those supporting the party in the hills. The party has been winning the Lok Sabha election in the hills since 2009.
Reacting to Mr. Ghosh’s statement, Darjeeling MLA and Gorkha National Liberation Front spokesperson Neeraj Zimba, an ally of the BJP, said: “Dilip Ghosh has his own political compulsions but that does not stop us from continuing our demand for a separate State of Gorkhaland.”
