Sikkim CM extends support to Gorkhaland movement
Adding a new twist to the ongoing unrest in the hills of Darjeeling in West Bengal, neighbouring Sikkim Chief Minister Pawan Chamling on Thursday extended his support for a separate Gorkhaland state saying it would fulfil the constitutional demand of the people of Darjeeling and also bring permanent peace in the region.
In a letter to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Chamling said, “The fulfilment of the constitutional demand of the people in the Darjeeling Hills...will provide long-awaited justice to their patriotism.” The Sikkim CM also said that creation of a Gorkhaland state will restore permanent peace and prosperity in the region and Sikkim will be hugely benefited by it. The three decades of agitation has claimed over 1,000 lives and caused incalculable loss of property,” Chamling wrote in the letter.
Besides, the chief minister said, Sikkim has been suffering “untold loss owing to the recurring blockage of its one and only lifeline NH-10 during the last 30 years of Gorkhaland agitation”.
Chamling, also the president of the ruling Sikkim Democratic Front, wrote about the plight of students and patients who needed to take that “tension-ridden highway to travel to their destination”. He said that a prolonged agitation in Darjeeling-Sikkim region would pose threat to national security also because of the tiny Himalayan state's strategic location. Sikkim lies within three international borders with China (Tibet), Nepal and Bhutan.
Citing the martyrdom of several Gorkha people during the freedom movement, Chamling wrote, “The martyrdom of the Gorkha freedom fighter, Major Durga Malla, has been duly recognised by the installation of his statue outside the Indian Parliament.”
In a related development, the all-party meeting called by the Mamata Banerjee government in Siliguri on Thursday came a cropper because most of the mainstream political perties of the hills and plains decided to stay away. — PTI