Calcutta/Cooch Behar, Sept. 22: The government today rubbished the claims to statehood being made by the Greater Cooch Behar People’s Association.

“There is no constitutional basis to the claims being made nor do they form part of the agreement signed between the Government of India and the Maharaja of Cooch Behar in August 1949,” said chief secretary Amit Kiran Deb. A copy of the agreement, available with The Telegraph, corroborates his point.

Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee refused to comment on the issue, saying he would elaborate on it at a public meeting in Cooch Behar, scheduled for September 24.

The Greater Cooch Behar People’s Association has been insisting that shortly after the pact had been signed, it had been agreed that Delhi would administer Cooch Behar after its accession to India.

As proof, its leaders cited a letter written by V.P. Menon, the then adviser to the Government of India, ministry of states, to Jagaddipendra Narayan, the maharaja of Cooch Behar, on August 30, 1949.

The letter states: “It is the intention of the Government of India to administer for the present the territories of the Cooch Behar state as a centrally administered area under a chief commissioner.”

Leaders of the association are also claiming ? this time without any document ? that Cooch Behar had been declared a “C” category state by the Government of India. “Cooch Behar was declared a C category state after an agreement between the Government of India and the maharaja, but it was illegally merged with Bengal,” said Bangshibadan Barman.

Deb said though Menon had written to the maharaja that Cooch Behar would be administered by Delhi, he had also made it clear that it would be only “for the present” and not for ever.

“It was initially administered by Delhi and even after Cooch Behar became a district of Bengal on January 1, 1950, its affairs were presided over by a chief commissioner appointed by Delhi for about six months,” Deb said. “However, Delhi’s decision to merge Cooch Behar with Bengal does not contravene any agreement that the maharaja had with the Centre. There is not a shred of evidence to prove this.”

Deb said that he would not like to dispute any claim ?whether right or wrong ? being made by the Greater Cooch Behar People’s Association about Cooch Behar hav- ing been declared a “C” category state. But he did say that the States Reorganisation Commission had in 1956 abolished the concept of categorising states and reconfirmed the status of Cooch Behar as a district of West Bengal.

“After that, constitutionally, whatever correspondence may have taken place ceased to have any value, other than being documents for historians to mull over.”

State home secretary Prasad Ranjan Roy echoed Deb. “Over 500 princely states, including Tripura, faced the same fate as Cooch Behar,” he said.