Ghisingh at the Tourist Lodge in Darjeeling. Picture by Suman Tamang

Darjeeling, Jan. 16: Round One in the DGHC battle has gone to Subash Ghisingh with Delhi agreeing to resume the tripartite-review meetings of the council after almost four years.

The talks were thrown off-track after the assassination attempt on Ghisingh in February 2001.

A delighted Ghisingh announced today that the central government had responded to the letter written by him after a three-month silence, agreeing to resume talks with the state government and the DGHC on the problems affecting the council.

?Shivraj Patil, the Union home minister, called me up at 1 pm yesterday and said the Centre was ready to resume the second round of tripartite review meeting. Even the state government has sent its representative here and the developments are positive,? Ghisingh said at the Tourist Lodge in Darjeeling.

The GNLF leader had earlier refused to participate in the coming election if an alternative to the present council was not worked out.

He has also stressed, time and again, that the letters ? written to the Centre, state government and United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi ? would determine ?the future of hill politics as everything had been disclosed in its contents?.

Though the date of the meeting has not been finalised, the DGHC chief said it could be held even in the ?next three days?.

He, however, threatened to launch a three-fold agitation, if the state government finalised the DGHC poll date before the outcome of the review meeting.

?If the dates of the election are finalised before the review meeting, we will announce a 108-hour bandh, file for an injunction in the court and unilaterally withdraw from the memorandum of settlement (the DGHC Accord) of August 22 (1988),? said Ghisingh.

The first tripartite review meeting took place in Delhi in February 2001. Ghisingh was attacked at Saat Ghoomti near Kurseong while he was returning to Darjeeling from the same meeting.

The GNLF chief also cited the first review meeting to point that he was not raising these issues just because the election was round the corner.

?We will win even if it is held tomorrow, but it is no use?This demand is being raised not because of the election,? Ghisingh added.

The review meeting could drag on until November while the current term of the DGHC expires on March 26.

Keeping this in mind, the CPM, CPRM, ABGL and the CPI faxed a letter to chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today, demanding that the DGHC poll be held before March 26.

Urban development and municipal affairs minister Asok Bhattacharya, who hurriedly called a news conference after emerging from a meeting at the circuit house this afternoon, said: ?We want election before the term of the present hill council expires. There can be no compromise on this. Elections are part of the overall democratic process.?

While it is wait-and-watch time for the parties, pressure is mounting on the state government.

If it does postpone the poll, there is the risk of being called pro-GNLF, if it does not, there could be another bout of uncertainty.