Bimal Gurung was seen in a car in front of Gorkha Bhavan’s boarding house in Salt Lake, sources said.
New Delhi:
Bimal Gurung, the leader of the state movement for Gorkhas in Bengal’s Darjeeling Hills and wanted by the state police for the past three years for violence and the murder of a policeman, appeared in Kolkata today and announced a 360 degree change in politics. loyalty – from the BJP to the Trinamool Congress.
“I want to see Mamata Banerjee again as chief minister and I will do my best to get her all the seats in North Bengal in the 2021 elections,” Gurung told a press meeting shortly after his appearance in the city.
“In the three years I have been in Delhi, I have seen the BJP. They have not kept any of the promises they made to us. Mamata Banerjee has always kept her commitment so I want to join her in 2021.”
In one of her outbursts against Mamata Banerjee during the Darjeeling upheaval in 2017, Bimal Gurung had called her a “witch”.
“Our demand for Gorkhaland remains and whoever finds a political solution to this political problem will have my support in the 2024 elections,” he added.
The head of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, the organization that heads the Gorkhaland movement, Bimal Gurung went into hiding in September 2017 after a policeman was killed in a clash allegedly with his supporters.
He was charged in several cases, including the strict UAPA anti-terrorism law, and the Bengal police issued a surveillance notice on his behalf.
Sources said the 56-year-old was seen today outside the Gorkha Bhavan guesthouse in Salt Lake, outside Kolkata. After sitting in a car for 30 minutes, he left when the doors to the building did not open. Although local police were on the scene, no arrests were made.
Bimal Gurung was last seen in Delhi in January 2018, when he declared that he was ready for talks with the West Bengal government for a separate state.
His appearance in Calcutta today since the major riots in the hill area three years ago, could signal a shift in politics over Darjeeling, which is represented in parliament by a BJP leader, Raju Bishta.
Bengal’s Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, has endorsed Bimal Gurung’s former assistant and current rival within the GJM: Benoy Tamang. His party has always accused the BJP of stoking what it called the “separatist movement” in the hills.
Benoy Tamang currently heads the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, the autonomous body in charge of the administration of the Darjeeling Hills. He also runs another branch of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, which has reduced demand for Gorkhaland.
The Gorkhaland movement, started by Subhash Ghising in the 1980s, erupted in 2017 after Mamata Banerjee made Bengali compulsory in public schools. The area saw vehement protests and an indefinite closure that lasted more than 100 days. In October 2017, a police search party that raided a GJM hideout within the Tukvar forest was reportedly shot. Police said Deputy Inspector Amitabha Malik died and four policemen were seriously injured.
The GJM had accused the Mamata Banerjee government of attempting to brand it as a militant organization and of diverting its conversations with the Center.
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