Narbula: under attack

Darjeeling, March 24: Bimal Gurung has criticised the Congress candidate for Darjeeling, Dawa Narbula, for seeking the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha support in the coming Lok Sabha elections.

“The statement given by Narbula yesterday expressing hope of the Morcha support is not only laughable but also a figment of his imagination,” read a release signed by Gurung, now in Delhi.

Yesterday, Congress district president of Darjeeling Shankar Malakar said the AICC was talking to the Morcha and was also in touch with other parties to defeat the CPM. Malakar had stated that even though there was no formal understanding with Gurung’s party, the Congress was confident of getting votes from the people of the hills.

Today, the Morcha chief attacked Narbula for working against the community’s feeling. “In the Dooars, when our supporters took bullets and became martyrs and when our sisters suffered injuries and were hospitalised, the MP was keeping mum,” the release read.

Gurung said the Gorkhas in India were looking forward to the Morcha’s statehood movement for the sake of “identity”. “Narbula is now talking about development, health and education but these are not our demands. If he thinks that his party’s stand (on the Gorkhaland demand) is more important than the community’s feeling, he is not a leader of the people but of the party.”

Earlier in the day, Gurung had summoned three of his lieutenants to Delhi, which means that an election deal with a national party is expected to be finalised soon. General secretary Roshan Giri, central committee leaders Amar Lama and Harka Bahadur Chhetri joined the party chief in the evening.

Denial on statehood

Narbula has, however, denied that he was against the demand for Gorkhaland as reported in The Telegraph on Monday. The Congress MP on Tuesday clarified that what he had said was that the Congress high command was seriously looking into the demand for a separate state and had expressed its serious concern about it. “The Congress is looking into the feasibility of smaller states in order to correct regional imbalances and disparities,” Narbula said.