Wordplay in govt hill draft
Posted by barunroy on June 17, 2008
FROM THE TELEGRAPH
Calcutta, June 16: The Bengal government will place a “flexibly worded” draft resolution at tomorrow’s all-party meeting as part of its efforts to draw the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) to talks and defuse the situation in the hills.
The draft will remain silent on “Gorkhaland” but will sound more accommodating than chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s invitation to the parties. The invitation had referred to “the protection of the state’s integrity”.
The draft, drawn up by the cabinet core committee today, dropped the words “rajyer akhandata raksha korte (to protect the state’s integrity)” and replaced them with a more “flexible” sentence “rajyer abasthan atut rekhe” (keeping the contours of the state unchanged).
“The resolution will be silent on whether we are accepting Gorkhaland or not. The government does not want to sound rigid since we are keen on talks with the Morcha and return of peace and normality. Hence the flexible attitude,” PWD minister Kshiti Goswami said later.
The chief minister had earlier urged the Morcha to drop the demand for Gorkhaland and join the talks but the organisation has so far linked its participation to the inclusion of statehood on the agenda.
Government sources said today’s semantics reflected differences within the Left Front. The sources said the changes were made mainly on the insistence of CPI veteran Nandagopal Bhattacharya, who was supported by Forward Bloc’s Naren De.
Although the chief minister as well as Goswami wanted to add the word “bhougolik (geographical)” to the draft resolution to convey more clearly the resolve to protect the state’s integrity, the CPI leader objected.
He felt that this was “already implied” in the text and the inclusion of the word would only help the Morcha find an excuse to skip talks that were originally scheduled a day after the all-party meeting. The chief minister accepted this, apparently to avoid any controversy within the Front.
But the acceptance also underscored a “mutual understanding” between the state and the Centre to deal with the renewed Gorkhaland agitation “cautiously and patiently”, a minister said.
“That’s why the draft resolution will not carry references to the Centre’s role or blame it in any way for the situation in the hills. The chief minister also made it clear to us today that he wouldn’t object if the Centre convenes a tripartite meeting,’’ another minister said.
As the chief minister has admitted “lack of development during Subhas Ghising’s regime” and offered to discuss “greater autonomy for the hills”, the resolution will call for “more administrative and financial powers”.
