GJM praises Mamata govt, says ready to give more time to it

The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha on Saturday praised the one year of Mamata Banerjee government and said it was prepared to give more time to it in resolving the Darjeeling crisis.

“We appreciate that the state government is trying to resolve the Darjeeling crisis. It is a matter of time and we will give them time,” GJM spokesperson Harkabahadur Chhetri said after meeting the Chief Minister at the secretariat.

“It appears that most of the problems will be resolved with the autonomy promised to us,” Mr. Chhetri said.

To a question, he said it would be not be right to expect that all expectations would be fulfilled in a year.

“It was only monologue and not dialogue in the previous regime which had no real intention to resolve our issues. We were able to express our problems fully to the new government, which we could not during Left Front rule,” Mr. Chhetri, a GJM central committee member said.

Stating that the budgetary allocation for Darjeeling hills had been raised to nearly Rs. 55 crore, he said “We want more funds for proper development of the hills.”