All 45 elected GTA members quit

Darjeeling, June 23

All 45 elected members of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), including its chief executive Bimal Gurung, resigned from the administrative body today.

The elected members belonged to the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) that is spearheading the ongoing movement in the hills for a separate Gorkhaland state.

GJM general secretary Roshan Giri said the resignations would be forwarded to the GTA principal secretary. Giri had stated yesterday: “We have decided to resign from the GTA.”

“The GTA has been turned into a ‘farce’ by the West Bengal Government,” he alleged. The GJM and the people of the hills would fight for a separate Gorkhaland state, he added.

The GJM’s decision to resign from GTA comes after an all-party meeting in the hills where it was decided that the party would withdraw from the tripartite GTA Accord.

At the June 20 meeting, all political parties and public organisations of the hills had unanimously declared their support to the longstanding demand for a separate Gorkhaland state in north Bengal. The GJM has been ruling the GTA since 2012 and its five-year term is set to expire this month.

A tripartite agreement paving the way for the setting up of the GTA, an elected body for the Darjeeling hills, was signed in 2011. The parties to the agreement were the Union Home Ministry, the state government and the GJM.

The GTA administers Darjeeling, Kurseong, Mirik, some areas of Siliguri subdivision of Darjeeling district and the entire Kalimpong district. — PTI