A row of hired vehicles at Darjeeling Motor Stand while their drivers were attending the meeting. (Suman Tamang)

Darjeeling, April 29: Tourists to the hill town had to make last-minute changes to their travel plans today as taxi syndicates in Darjeeling decided to take a large part of the day off to espouse the cause of Gorkhaland.

No hired vehicles were available here from 10am to 2pm as members of the All Transport Joint Action Committee, an affiliate of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, brought out a procession and held a public meeting at Chowk Bazar.

“The meeting is being held to strengthen Bimal Gurung’s stand in the Gorkhaland agitation. We also want to tell the administration to stop harassing our drivers in Siliguri and improve roads,” Narbu Lama, the president of the committee, said.

The Morcha had earlier insisted that unlike the Gorkhaland agitation in the 1980s, its movement for a new state would not inconvenience tourists. However, the scenes in Darjeeling today told a different story.

Abhijit Majumdar from Calcutta was one of those who cut short their trips and left Darjeeling before 10 in the morning. “We have to board a bus from Siliguri in the evening and were supposed to start off from here in the afternoon. But we have decided to push off right away instead of taking a risk later in the day,” said Majumdar as he boarded a vehicle around 9am.

Others who were planning to go on local sight-seeing trips were also disappointed.

“I came to know about the transporters’ meeting last evening. Although I could go to Tiger Hill early this morning and visit places like Batasia Loop and the Dali monasteries, I had to give the nearby tourist spots a miss. Since we are going off to Gangtok tomorrow, it was quite a waste of a day here,” said Sikna Brahma who had come from Bongaigaon in Assam.

Tourists usually visit places like the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, the Darjeeling zoo, the rock garden and the nearby tea estates during the day. “The driver said I could visit some of the places in the evening but after a tiring walk, I do not feel like going out,” Brahma added after he had trekked 3km up hill to the Peace Pagoda.

The transport business is heavily dependent on visitors to the hills, particularly during the tourist season. Tourism is also one of the pillars of the hill economy.

Tour operators are still bullish about the prospects of the next few months. “It is true that there were some cancellations during the first week of April, but business has been picking up from the third week. We are expecting a good tourist inflow in May,” Pradeep Tamang, the secretary of Darjeeling Association of Travel Agents, said.

Tamang, however, added that it was time to take up new forms of protest.

“In Darjeeling, everyone is in favour of Gorkhaland. Every community is supporting the cause. Perhaps it is time to look beyond rallies and meetings in Darjeeling. The transporters had earlier made an appeal to political parties asking them not to call strikes during the tourist season and I think we should all act accordingly,” he said.

Lathicharge probe

The second phase of the inquiry into the police lathicharge on a rally of Morcha-affiliated ex-servicemen near Siliguri on April 9 will begin from May 5 at the Darjeeling Circuit House, the information and cultural affairs department said on Tuesday. Anyone wishing to submit a written statement on the issue should do so on May 4 between 2pm and 5pm at the circuit house. The deposition will start at 10am on May 5.