In the tripartite talks between the central government, the West Bengal state government and GJM, the Morcha, which is fighting for a separate Gorkhaland state, had proposed the inclusion of Dooars and Silguri besides Darjeeling under the interim arrangement. But government officials even refused any discussion over the issue.[break]
“They don´t want to give in, but we will not drop our demand. The talks thus ended inconclusively,” Dr Harka Bahadur Chettri, Morcha press secretary and member of the talks team, told Republica.
The first national-level negotiations on the Gorkhaland issue was held one and half months ago. Tuesday´s meeting was held to fix the agenda for the upcoming second political talks scheduled for May 25. But given the deadlock the Morcha´s proposal is now in the doldrums. The officials at the meeting stated that only Darjeeling in its capacity as a hill area can be included under the interim arrangement.
GJM had forwarded the alternative for the interim arrangement to the administrative mechanism following the decision to scrap the Darjeeling Gorkha Parvatya Parishad headed by Subash Ghising a year back.
The Morcha has been demanding inclusion of the Tarai region´s Dooars and Siliguri also under the mechanism titled Darjeeling, Dooars Regional Authority. These two areas were not included under the Parishad.
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