M.L. Meena, the chairman of the probe commission, at the circuit house in Darjeeling on Monday. Picture by Suman Tamang

Darjeeling, May 5: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha today responded positively to Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s invitation for a dialogue but said the party would attend the meeting only if the Centre was involved in the process.

The Bengal chief minister had yesterday told a news channel in Calcutta that the people of Darjeeling should come forward with their demands.

“What do you really want from us? What do you expect from us or the Centre? What do you want to achieve through your movements?” Bhattacharjee had asked the hill residents. He had also appealed to the people to bring about an amicable solution for lasting peace in the region without which, he said, there could not be any development in the hills.

Binay Tamang, the media and publicity secretary of the Morcha, said his party had no problem submitting a list of demands.

“But it is laughable that the chief minister is not aware of it. Our sole demand is the creation of a state called Gorkhaland, comprising the Darjeeling hills and the Dooars and the Terai areas of Bengal,” said Tamang. He, however, made it clear that his party was not interested in bipartite talks. “We had met the chief minister earlier. We believe that only a tripartite meeting can solve the problems. Let the state and the Centre both take the initiative as we are never against a dialogue,” Tamang added.

Bimal Gurung, the Morcha president, had met the chief minister in the last week of February this year. The talks had then largely centred around removing GNLF chief Subash Ghisingh from the post of the caretaker administrator of the DGHC and the scrapping of the bill conferring Sixth Schedule status on the hills.

A number of Morcha delegations also met chief secretary Amit Kiran Deb in the months that followed. Discussions ranged from permission pleas to hold rallies in Siliguri to regularisation of council workers who are mostly on six-month contract, but not statehood.

Political analysts believe that the Morcha had not broached the subject of Gorkhaland with the state government till date as it first wanted to consolidate its support base in the Dooars and Terai, known to be predominantly Left bastions. Having made significant inroads there in the past few months, the Morcha is now warming up for a dialogue on a separate state.