Calcutta, June 17: The bonhomie may have been there but so was the criticism.

Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Union minister Priya Ranjan Das Munshi together briefed the media at Writers’ Buildings this afternoon, but the Congress did not spare the Bengal government for its handling of the Darjeeling hills affair. Some of the Left Front partners like the RSP and the BJP had also joined the Congress.

Sources present at the meeting said Das Munshi told the chief minister that the people of Darjeeling had become restive for the past two years because of the lack of development and political issues like not holding elections to the DGHC on time.

“The different communities were not even consulted when the government moved in support of the DGHC’s demand for the inclusion of the hills in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution,’’ he said.

The Union minister also criticised the chief minister for helping the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha gain ground by allowing it to prevent GNLF chief Subash Ghisingh from going up to his home in the hills in recent times. “The government brought him down to Calcutta instead of ensuring his return,’’ Das Munshi said. “If Ghisingh was sent back, the situation would not have deteriorated and the Morcha would not have been able to spread trouble in Siliguri and the Doors.’’

On the other hand, the minister said the government’s failure to stop the attack on the Siliguri office of the Morcha and the “ultra parochialism” of outfits like Jana Jagaran or Amra Bangali had further vitiated the situation. He accused the CPM of giving “political indulgence” to these outfits.

The BJP, while maintaining that the chief minister’s “efforts were in the right direction”, felt that it was “too little and too late”. BJP state secretary Rahul Sinha said Bhattacharjee “must stop people like Subhash Chakrabarty and Ashok Bhattacharya from making irresponsible utterances.’’

“We also want the government to find out who are the people behind Jana Jagaran,’’ said RSP’s Darjeeling secretary Benoy Chakraborty.

The chief minister admitted that “some mistakes” had been made, but defended the government’s decision to bring back Ghisingh to Calcutta. “It was not possible for him at that time to return to the hills without resigning as DGHC chief,’’ he argued.