Kalimpong, March 7: Fifteen ward commissioners, including 11 GNLF rebels, of the Kalimpong Municipality have expressed the hope that its chairman C.K. Kumai will resign given that he no longer enjoys the confidence of the civic body’s board.

The commissioners decided at a meeting here today to work out modalities for the smooth functioning of the board for the next five months since the present one, they believe, would have to resign on moral grounds. The board cannot be voted out immediately either, said Norden Lama, the Kalimpong branch president of the Akhil Bharatiya Gorkha League and the commissioner of ward7, since the municipality rule says that after a no-trust motion is defeated, another could not be moved in the next six months. The total strength of the board is 23.

A no-trust motion by the opposition against the GNLF-run board was defeated on January 24 after some commissioners of the party, who had initially supported the move, backed out at the last moment. The table against the GNLF seems to have turned for good now after 11 of its members attended today’s meeting chaired by Bijay Sundas of ward-5 and the central committee member of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha.

Lama said they wanted to make sure that functioning of the board did not suffer in the following five months if the GNLF-led board resigned.