Bhattacharjee talks to a schoolgirl at the Falakata Community Hall after handing her a bicycle. As many as 402 students received bicycles from Bhattacharjee on Sunday. Picture by Anirban Choudhury

Feb. 14: Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said Adivasis should not form units in the Dooars gardens and assured the handful of audience who assembled in Falakata this morning to hear him speak that it was the government’s responsibility to look after the families of KLO rebels willing to return to the mainstream.

“First of all, I want to say that I will not allow any division of north Bengal. See the condition of Jharkhand (after it was carved out of Bihar)…. Some youths were misguided and joined the KLO but now they have returned and we will take responsibility for their families,” Bhattacharjee told a 1,000-strong crowd at the Falakata Town Club grounds, 34km from Alipurduar in Jalpaiguri district.

He appealed to the Adivasis to refrain from calling strikes in the gardens. “If the Adivasis start forming units in the tea gardens, the existing trade unions (read Citu) will lose strength and the workers will not be able to bargain with the management, which will be in a better off position. The Adivasis should not go for strikes either because that would make everyone suffer,” said Bhattacharjee on the last day of his three-day trip to north Bengal. He will leave for Calcutta tomorrow.

He asked the farmers not to marry off their daughters before they attain adulthood. “Let them go to colleges and universities. The women earn good amounts from the self-help groups.”

Later at a programme in the community hall, Bhattacharjee presented 11 Forest Protection Committees 15 per cent of their share in the sale of timber by the forest department. A little after noon, the chief minister left Falakata for Jalpaiguri town.

The Trinamul Congress today said the party would observe a black day tomorrow to protest Bhattacharjee’s statements in Cooch Behar yesterday that the Left Front and its supporters “would strike back against Trinamul men creating… anarchy”.

Trinamul state president Subrata Bakshi said party workers across the state would wear black badges and organise meetings and processions to protest the chief minister’s “provocative language against the Opposition”.