By Dinesh Wagle
Wagle Street Journal
This is part of an article that appeared on today’s Op-Ed of the Kahtmandu Post. The other part is here. The complete article in PDF is here.
The high pitched movement for the state of Gorkhaland within India by the Nepali-speaking people of the Darjeeling area has reached an awkward situation. The Gorkha Jana Mukti Morcha (GJMM), the party that resurrected the Gorkhaland movement, and its firebrand leader Bimal Gurung have handed over the task of taking up the issue of statehood in Delhi to the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The GJMM has supported the candidacy of BJP’s Jaswant Singh from the Darjeeling seat in the parliamentary elections to be held on April 30.
This has invited mixed reactions from the locals in Darjeeling. “The party should have nominated its own candidate,” said one local reporter who didn’t want to be identified. He believed that the party shouldn’t have relied on other parties regarding their issue as “all parties in the past have cheated us Gorkhalis”. Others felt differently. “Now our Bimal Gurung has brought someone from Delhi, an influential leader, who can take our case to the high corridors of Delhi,” said an elderly man whom I met one early morning. Singh, a BJP veteran and leader of the opposition in the upper house Rajya Sabha, actually hails from the desert state of Rajasthan. He keeps reminding his prospective voters about the fact with a little bit of mythical twist. “Perhaps God brought me here to the mountains to work for you,” Singh has been repeating in his campaign speeches.
On the other hand, Bimal Gurung is busy these days justifying his decision to rely on the BJP. In a recent public meeting organized at Gymkhana Club, Darjeeling, Gurung said that supporting the BJP was the best decision that he and his party could take at the time. “The Congress will never support our cause because one of its influential leaders, Pranab Mukharjee, is a Bengali, and he doesn’t want to go among his men as the one who divided the state of West Bengal [where Darjeeling is situated],” Gurung said. What about the Third Front? “It’s all dominated by communists who have been ruling Bengal since ages,” Gurung said. “The BJP was the only viable option. We made sure that it included our demand for Gorkhaland in its election manifesto. We decided to support it only after we saw that it had been included.”
Some feel that the Gorkha community doesn’t have the capacity to win the elections, and supporting a national party was a lame effort to keep the issue alive. Others believe this is an example of the GJMM and its leaders selling out to national political parties on the issue of ethnicity and Gorkhali identity like Subash Ghising did for years.
“If Singh is defeated,” said the same reporter, “that would be interpreted as the defeat of the GJMM, and the whole cause of Gorkhaland.”
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8 responses to “Gorkhaland Goes BJP”
Maoist could not digest ghee
why are they doing everything but except what they are suppose to be doing? …………………………
its time to summon pla for classification for them being involved in criminal activities, beating locals ….. ……………………………. if they could not provide acceptable answer PLA should be dissolved. …………….
……………………… its time to tighten the budget that goes to them.
for maoist/terrorists, their personal ego is more important than country ……………… its just like royals…….
,……………………….. they are side lining individuals who do not give advice they want to hear just like shahs ….
…………………………………. they are using country, govt organs. for their pleasure -national games, budget etc just like shahs used to do ………………………… nepalese we have a new king, actually its kings and there are thousands of them………… in the central as well as locally …………….. trouble ahead ……………… we may have to send another king to the jungle …………. ……… it is like world is round or rotates in a circle.
I hope CoAS would give answer like- they did what they did for the people, country, democracy ……………………………………………., to protect country, people, the org. from authoritarian, from sankies like ram bahadur ……………………………………… he should give such an answer that would support people, democracy and insults maoist ……………
Maoist are just diverting the attention of the people..cause they are unable to do any CHAMATKAR.
terrorists have painted face of TU bosses black …………………………………. another low of terrorists ………………………….. how low they can fall ……………………………….. let’s see how this incident will develop ………………………. if i were a professor, i would have closed all the university, colleges till those guilties are killed by throwing stones even if it would take million years ………………………………………………..
they need to be punished ………………………… if teachers do not protest ……… i would say they deserve to be treated like this . they should be kicked in teacher’s day instead of puja ……………………………………. …….. ….. i could not believe how could terrorist get vote in university, colleges where educated individuals study ………………… may be this is the plan of god ……… every incidents those are developing especially during last few months …………….. seem to lead maoist to bloody killing by public anger ………………………… death to maoist
PAINTING THE FACES of the TU officials had shown that the students of ANNISU (R) are still ignorant, moreover, as the maoist is leading the government, the y are not able to expend any on the university, as nominal rise in exam fee leads to this incident, then , who is responsible for the rise in consumer goods, petrol , …. then time will come fro the faces of PRACHANDA nad baburam painted BLACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
well the move to support BJP by GJMM is a clever move….
I hope the move proves beneficial to the Gorkhaland movement… …..because
if not then the common Gorkhalis will again think that
they are betrayed by GJMM and Bimal Gurung (as done by Ghising and his associates ) and Gorkhaland movement will sadly be defered some decades further…..again………..