MHA to hold meeting on Gorkhaland Territorial Administration issue today

The meeting will be attended by Darjeeling’s district magistrate S Ponnambalam, principal secretary of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration and the president of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha’s Bimal Gurung faction

G Kishan Reddy, minister of state (MoS) for the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), will hold a meeting at 11am on Wednesday to discuss issues related to Gorkhaland Territorial Administration.

The BJP has all along promised to find a permanent political solution to the demand for a Gorkhaland, which has been raised by the Nepali-speaking Gorkhas living in the Darjeeling hills and adjoining Siliguri, the Terai and the Dooars region in north Bengal. (AFP File)

The meeting will be attended by Darjeeling’s district magistrate (DM) S Ponnambalam, principal secretary of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) and the president of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha’s (GJM) Bimal Gurung faction.

HK Dwivedi, who was appointed as the home secretary by the Bengal government last week, has also been invited for the meeting, but people familiar with the development said that he would skip it.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has won the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat thrice since 2009 by forging an alliance with the GJM.

In 2019, the BJP had an alliance with the GJM (Gurung faction), the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) and other small political parties in the Darjeeling hills.

The BJP has all along promised to find a permanent political solution to the demand for a Gorkhaland, which has been raised by the Nepali-speaking Gorkhas living in the Darjeeling hills and adjoining Siliguri, the Terai and the Dooars region in north Bengal.

Earlier, in its election manifestos in 2014 and 2019, the BJP had promised that it would find a permanent solution to the Gorkhaland demand.