All-party meet on Darjeeling situation today

TIL Desk/National/Darjeeling/ With the indefinite shutdown in the Darjeeling hills entering its 76th day, all eyes are set on the crucial all-party meeting convened by the West Bengal government today at the state secretariat.

Leaders of several parties from the hills will join the talks, amid reports of cracks in the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) and the Gorkhaland Movement Coordination Committee.”We hope we will be able to find a solution to the Darjeeling crisis,” GJM leader Binay Tamang, who is leading the party’s five-member delegation, told reporters.

The Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF), Jan Andolan Party (JAP) and the Akhil Bharatiya Gorkha League (ABGL) will attend the meeting along with the GJM. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had said yesterday that her government wanted to restore peace in the strife-hit region.

Banerjee had taken the initiative to call a meeting between the government and hill parties after the GNLF wrote to her requesting for opening a dialogue to resolve the crisis caused by the shutdown in support of the demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland.

According to secretariat sources, Banerjee would be accompanied by the state’s chief secretary, home secretary, police chief and a couple of senior ministers at the meeting.