A North Bengal State Transport Corporation bus damaged during the clash at Darjeeling More. A Telegraph picture

April 9: The Congress and the Trinamul Congress have decided to follow the RSP in pulling out of tomorrow’s all-party convention organised by the Siliguri Municipal Corporation (SMC) to show “hills-plains unity”.

The meet has been called mainly to garner support against the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha’s decision to include Siliguri subdivision in the new state that it is demanding.

“We are pulling out because we do not believe in the parochial politics of the CPM,” said Gautam Deb, the north Bengal convener of Trinamul. “Although we agree with the rationale behind the convention, we do not see it as the right platform because the ruling CPM has shown on many occasions that it does not mean what it says.”

Deb took pot shots at the CPM for its alleged involvement in the ransacking of a Morcha office at Darjeeling More yesterday. “On the one hand they call an all-party convention for hills-plains unity, and on the other, they go about ransacking the office of some other party two days before the meet. The convention is a political gimmick and we do not want to be a party to it.”

Deb said party chief Mamata Banerjee would soon announce Trinamul’s stance on Gorkhaland and other Morcha demands.

Darjeeling district Congress president Shankar Malakar said the civic body was not the right organisation to address the issue, “which needs the attention of the chief minister himself”.

PCC president Priya Ranjan Das Munshi, who was in Malda’s Chanchol to campaign for the party’s candidate in the Kharba by-elections, said the convention was “not in the interest of the larger good of the state”.

“The chief minister should convene an all-party meeting in Calcutta and declare the state government’s stand on hill politics,” Das Munshi said.

Left Front chairman and state CPM secretary Biman Bose said he would sit with front partners after returning to Calcutta from Behrampore for arranging a peace meeting in Darjeeling.

“The Centre should hold a meeting with the state government to find a solution to the problem in Darjeeling,” said Bose, who arrived in Behrampore today to attend a party meeting.