Darjeeling, March 26 -- The Union Home Ministry has scheduled a meeting on April 2, at 11 am in North Block, New Delhi, to address the Gorkha impasse.

The meeting will be chaired by the Minister of State (N) for Home Affairs, Government of West Bengal.

Raju Bista, MP, Darjeeling stated: "On Wednesday, I received an invitation from the Home Ministry to attend the second round of tripartite talks involving the Central government, all stakeholders from Darjeeling Hills, Terai and Dooars and the West Bengal government."

This is the second round of talks, the first was held on October 12, 2021. However, not many details have been divulged about the meeting.

"The chief secretary of Bengal has been invited for the talks," claimed Bista, hinting that representatives of political allies of the BJP from the Hills will also be there, including the BJP MPs and MLAs.

Earlier he had stated that the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) will not be invited for talks nor the Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha, the party in power in the Hills.

Bista, talking to the Press, claimed that along with a permanent political solution, talks would involve other issues like Scheduled Tribe status to 11 Gorkha sub-communities and the Bengal proposal to use 30 per cent of unplanted areas of tea gardens for tourism and other allied purposes which has met with protests.

"Bengal wants to take away the land of the Gorkhas. To prevent Bengal's highhandedness, the Gorkhas are demanding a separate state," added Bista stating that the political solution will enjoy a Constitutional guarantee and will not be any arrangement under the Bengal Legislature.

Incidentally, the BJP has been assuring a permanent political solution for the Gorkha impasse. This has also featured in the party's Sankalp Patra (election manifesto). Despite the BJP having won the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat since 2009, not much headway has been seen in this direction.

The BJP has been facing pressure, even from its alliance partners owing to this.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.