Kalimpong, Oct. 7: The ABGL continues to get a fillip in its mass base in the Kalimpong subdivision with 70 youths joining the party at Pedong yesterday.

All the new entrants to the ABGL were with the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha earlier.

“We were very active supporters of the Morcha since its inception as we had entertained the dream of Gorkhaland. Now the situation has changed, and we feel that we were only being used (by the Morcha),” said Uttam Bardewa, a local youth.

Bardewa and his friends were welcomed to the party by working president Dawa Sherpa and two top leaders in the subdivision, Tshering Sherpa and K. Subba, who had left the GNLF and joined the ABGL last month.

“We welcome our new friends and will be holding discussions with them. In a democracy, anybody can eat food, wear clothes and join the party of his choice. However, it is sad people here are being stopped from exercising their democratic rights,” Dawa Sherpa said in an oblique reference to the Morcha.

Sherpa said his party had been working on its own towards realising the goal of a separate state. “Gorkhaland, not an interim arrangement, is the one and only dream of the people in the hills We will work towards the goal without inconveniencing the people here and by planning Delhi-centric programmes,” he said.

Pedong is 22km from Kalimpong.

On September 19, about 30 youths had joined the ABGL in Kalimpong. Before that, the party had got a big boost when more than 500 people, mostly associated with the Morcha, had joined the organisation at Nimbong and Borbot villages.

“The people are joining us spontaneously. Many people in the urban areas have also approached us and expressed their intention to join the party,” said Pratap Khati, a central committee member of the ABGL.

The ABGL has been carrying out an exercise to strengthen its base at all levels in the subdivision. Only last month, the Kalimpong branches of the party and its youth wing were revamped with new office-bearers.