The Saraswati Puja at Chowrastha. (Suman Tamang)

Darjeeling, Feb. 11: Seven families in a village of more than 150 houses in Pandem have accused the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha of ostracising them. Once a GNLF bastion, the entire valley along Pandem, near here, has now switched allegiance to the Morcha.

Urmila Tamang, a GNLF supporter, alleged that she can neither visit her relatives nor use local vehicles or sell grocery from her shop after the Morcha call for social boycott.

“They have damaged my shop and house and now even my relatives fear visiting me. No one buys anything from my shop. People do not even give us their vehicle on hire saying that they are following the Morcha diktat,” said Tamang, who is in her 50s.

C.B. Tamang, who is the GNLF Lebong Valley chief and Urmila’s husband, is currently in jail after a clash between the two rival parties on January 4. “Such diktats were against houses which have GNLF flags,” said Urmila.

A group of 10 GNLF women supporters who had come to the house of Deepak Gurung, the party’s Darjeeling branch committee president, wanted to know if a diktat had really been issued by Morcha president Bimal Gurung. “He is talking about a democratic movement and Gandhibadi. We want to know whether he has issued the social boycott order or is it the local unit at work,” said one of the women.

Gurung, too, alleged that a number of GNLF municipality commissioners were being socially boycotted. “We condemn such form of politics. These people are not only socially boycotting the villagers but they also want to drive them away from their respective localities,” he added.

Dismissing the allegation, Binay Tamang, the Morcha spokesperson, said the practice of social boycott was started by the GNLF. “We have not issued any such diktat but if the local samajs and the villagers believe that some people are creating a nuisance and if they take independent decisions against them, the party cannot say much.”