Under the backdrop of a tense situation in Kashmir following the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Parliament from West Bengal’s Darjeeling, Raju Bisht has linked it with the demand for Gorkhaland.
With the Centre dividing Jammu & Kashmir into two Union Territories, Bisht said a similar move could bring about a permanent solution to the Gorkhaland issue. The Centre must either create a new Gorkhaland state or make Gorkhaland a Union territory, the BJP MP has demanded.
Bisht came up with the demand within two days of the Centre bifurcating Jammu & Kashmir into two Union Territories – Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh. The MP has said that once the current session of Parliament concludes, he will lead a Gorkha delegation and call on the President of India Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah and tell them about the people’s long standing demand for Gorkhaland and how it has affected their lives for years. He said that a lasting political solution to the Gorkhaland issue ought to be arrived at by 2024.
According to Bisht, the BJP-led Union government did not indulge in vote bank politics and therefore was the right dispensation to bring about a lasting solution to the problem of the Gorkhas. There are talks that the BJP – keen on winning the Assembly elections in West Bengal in 2021 – might have already planned something big in connection with Gorkha agitation in Darjeeling. Why else would the party MP raise the Gorkhaland issue at such a crucial juncture, is the question doing the rounds in political circles.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee had repeatedly said that she would not let the state be bifurcated. Given her position on Gorkhaland, the demand from the BJP MP seems to be paving the way for yet another political battle between Bengal’s ruling party and the BJP.
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