(From top) Kishore Gurung, Deepa Rani Thakuri and T.N. Ghisingh. All three GNLF leaders have resigned from the party. Pictures by Suman Tamang and Chinlop Fudong Lepcha

Darjeeling/Kurseong, Feb. 29: An exodus from the GNLF has begun, but party heavyweights wishing to switch allegiance to the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha are being told to join as ordinary members and that, too, after they are vetted by the Morcha’s local village committees.

Morcha chief Bimal Gurung stressed these two points at all public meetings in the hills before he left for Calcutta.

T.N. Ghisingh, the president of the Teesta Valley unit of the GNLF, joined the Morcha yesterday as an ordinary member, along with his supporters.

Some GNLF leaders, however, have resigned from the party but not joined the Morcha. Darjeeling MLA Pranay Rai is one of them.

“I had earlier requested (party president) Subash Ghisingh to resign from the post of caretaker administrator of the DGHC to honour the people’s aspirations. He failed to do so and I have decided not to stay with the GNLF any longer,” Rai said over the phone from Calcutta.

Kishore Gurung, the chief convener of the GNLF youth wing, has taken a similar stand. “I am resigning because I have started to dislike the party’s principles,” Kishore said at his residence in the Happy Valley tea garden.

The youth wing was floated as a force to challenge Bimal Gurung after the formation of the Morcha. Kishore’s resignation will come as a big blow to this plan.

While Kishore said he would stay away from politics for the time being, he added that he would not stop his followers, from joining any party they chose to.

Similarly, GNLF councillors of Wards 6 and 30 of the Darjeeling Municipality, Basundara Pradhan and Manikala Tamang, have resigned from the party but remained non-committal about their future.

In Kurseong, on the other hand, eight GNLF councillors today switched over to the Morcha. They are Darbeshwar Prasad (Ward 1), Harimaya Mangrati (2), Asha Chettri (4), Ravi Tamang (10), Jaitoon Khatun (11) Phul Kumari Nirawla (17), Kishore Thapa (5) and Yankee Moktan (20).

With two Independent councillors from Wards 13 and 14, Sanjeeb Sharma and Sunita Lama, also joining the Morcha, the party now has a 12-8 majority over the GNLF in the Kurseong civic board.

“We will move a no confidence motion against the P.C. Agarwal-led board tomorrow,” said Balaram Chettri, the Morcha councillor of Ward 6 of the Kurseong Municipality.