|
Gorkhaland : GNLF leader raises sovereignty issue again |
 |
Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) chief Subhash Ghisingh has reiterated that he was ‘determined’ to go to any length, even if it meant going to jail once again, to get justice for the hill people.
Ghisingh also raised the bogey of a sovereign country - Gorkhaland - and referred to it as the extreme step that he might be compelled to take. The general impression, however, was that Ghisingh was looking for Sixth Schedule status for the hills.
Urging GNLF leaders to stop clamouring for elections, Ghisingh said: ‘I will not contest any election to this dead council, no matter what happens.’ He made it clear that the provisions mulled by the state government under Article 371 could never be accepted, as the arrangement would have ‘less power than that of a gram panchayat’.
Addressing a packed multiplex at Rink Mall last week, Ghisingh often deviated from the issue of hill tribes. Instead of sticking to the purpose of meet - to drive home the backwardness of the hill community - the GNLF chief launched into a tirade against the state and the Centre, threatening both governments with dire consequences. Though it was clear that he was banking on the 1931 British census to get tribal status for the hill people, the GNLF leader last week on June 9 blamed the English for making the hill people ‘landless’.
Taking the West Bengal government to task for ‘meting out injustice to the hill people’, Ghisingh said the leaders in Bengal should learn to be generous like Lalu Prasad Yadav, ‘who had helped carve a new state’ (read Jharkhand). Ghisingh also referred to ‘(greater) Assam, out of which was formed the seven states of the Northeast’.
‘I have been bitten by the bugs of the Darjeeling jail and am not afraid to go there. Right now I am trying to feel the pulse of the state and the Centre, but I see little hope,’ he added.
|
