Ghisingh at the rest house. A Telegraph picture

March 7: Subash Ghisingh has claimed that Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had “requested” him to resign as the caretaker administrator of the DGHC and he had complied with it “keeping in mind the larger interest of the hills”.

In an interview to The Telegraph today, the GNLF chief, who is set to resign on March 10, claimed that he became aware of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha’s movement against him when he went to Santiniketan on February 27.

“When I visited that place, I came to know that they (Morcha supporters) were organising a hunger strike and indefinite bandh in the hills. I rushed to Calcutta and met the chief minister. When he requested me to resign, I agreed, keeping in mind the larger interest of the hills,” Ghisingh said at the West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd’s rest house in Second Mile, Siliguri.

Before he went to Santiniketan, however, the GNLF chief had already faced Morcha protesters who prevented him from entering the hills and forced him to spend four days in Pintail Village near Siliguri after his return from Delhi on February 18.

Morcha supporters had also started an indefinite fast near Pintail on February 21.

In Calcutta, home secretary Prasad Ranjan Ray today said Ghisingh’s exit would have been more graceful had he resigned earlier. Ray added that Jalpaiguri divisional commissioner B.L. Meena would be appointed as the administrator of DGHC “the day Ghisingh resigns”.

The chief minister had announced Ghisingh’s decision to resign on March 1, a day after the Sixth Schedule bills drafted to grant the special status to the hills were effectively sent to cold storage by a parliamentary committee scrutinising it.

“The state government at this hour is not willing to proceed with the bill,” said Ray today.