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CPM protests Congress ‘flip-flop’

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Siliguri, Aug. 22: Darjeeling district CPM leaders have come down heavily on the Congress leadership, accusing it of double standards on Gorkhaland.

The district CPM was referring to the meeting that the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha delegation had with Pranab Mukherjee in New Delhi yesterday. The Congress MP from Darjeeling had said that Mukherjee told the delegation that the party was not averse to the idea of small states. The Congress’s reported stand had fuelled Morcha hopes and it had claimed that the external affairs minister’s assertion was a step towards including Gorkhaland in the proposed tripartite talks.

Earlier, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had repeatedly shot down discussions on Gorkhaland and had instead said the talks would centre around the situation in the hills.

“We are surprised to see the double standard of the Congress,” said Jibitesh Sarkar, a state committee member of the CPM, at a news conference at Anil Biswas Bhawan today.

“On one hand, Priya Ranjan Das Munshi is saying his party is against further division of the state, while on the other, the MP from Darjeeling is quoting Pranab Mukherjee who said the Congress is not averse to forming smaller states and was toying with the idea of setting up the second State Reorganisation Commission.”

According to the Darjeeling district CPM leadership, the support openly extended by MP Dawa Narbula to the Morcha demand indicates the “intentions of his party”.

“Narbula, behaving in typical Congress manner, had escorted the Morcha delegation to Mukherjee. The MP is himself harping on the demand for a separate state despite Das Munshi clearing his party’s stand,” Sarkar said.

Sarkar also said the Morcha’s movement was irrational and comments like the one that they were protesting within the framework of the Constitution would only encourage separatist tendencies and had the potential to “destabilise national integrity”.

© 2008 The Gorkhaland Chronicle.