GNLF shows black flags to state BJP chief in Darjeeling

A day after the Jana Andolan Party activists protested against his visit in Kalimpong, West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh on Thursday was again shown black flags and 'go back' posters by another hill-based outfit Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) on his way to hill town Darjeeling.

The GNLF activists blocked Ghosh's convoy en route Darjeeling and agitated demanding the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) make its stand clear on the Gorkhaland issue. However, he was able to reach Darjeeling after police intervened to remove the blockade.

Terming the agitation by their activists as a spontaneous outburst of angst and despair, the GNLF leadership demanded the BJP immediately initiate the tripartite talks on the issue.

"Now that the shutdown in the hills has been withdrawn and normalcy is returning to the hills, what is the use of their (BJP leaders) visit to Darjeeling? Where were they in the time of crisis when we needed them the most? Dilip Ghosh is anti-Gorkha and anti-Gorkhaland. We do not want these people here," GNLF spokesperson Neeraj Zimba told IANS.

"We want the BJP and the central government to make their stand clear. We want to know if it is possible for them to create Gorkhaland. If it is possible why don't they create it and if not, then why did they make such false promises during the previous election campaigns?" he said.

Zimba further alleged that in spite of winning the election in Darjeeling with a whopping majority, BJP MP S S Ahluwalia neither supported nor came to the hills during the crisis.

"The BJP in its political manifesto in 2009 and 2013, stated they would sympathetically examine and appropriately consider the long pending demand of the Gorkhas. Even (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi had said the dream of the Gorkhas is his dream during his 2013 visit to the hills.

"On this emotional plank, Ahluwalia was elected as the MP of Darjeeling but he neither spoke a single word about Gorkhaland nor came here in the last three months of the agitation that saw 12 people dead and several others injured and arrested," he said.

Meanwhile, Ghosh, who has faced constant resistance by the locals and hill parties during his three-day tour to the north Bengal hills, said the BJP is working to resolve the issues of the Gorkhas and people of other ethnicity living in the region.

"This is a sentimental issue of the Gorkhas. The BJP is not just considering the situation of Gorkhas in Darjeeling, but also of more than six crore Gorkhas living all over the country.

"We are working so that the Gorkhas are able to live with respect, their issues with identity and language could be sorted out. We are also considering the solutions so that the desire of all the communities living in the hills can be addressed," he said.

Ghosh, who visited Kalimpong and Darjeeling during his north Bengal tour, might also go Sikkim for a day.