Darjeeling unrest: All 45 Gorkhaland Territorial Administration leaders resign

Darjeeling: All the 45 elected members of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), including its Chief Executive Bimal Gurung, on Friday resigned from the administrative body.

The elected members belonged to the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) which is spearheading the ongoing movement in the hills for a separate Gorkhaland state.

Bimal Gurung has demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into the police firing on the GJM supporters.

This comes after 43 members of the GJM resigned from the GTA.

Gurung said, "Indefinite strike to continue. All-party meeting postponed to June 29. We will burn GTA agreement on June 27."

Meanwhile, GJM general secretary Roshan Giri said that the resignations would be forwarded to the GTA principal secretary.

Giri had stated on Thursday, "We have decided to resign from the GTA."

GTA has been turned into a "farce" by the West Bengal government, he alleged and said that GJM and the people of the hills would fight for the single agenda of a separate Gorkhaland state.

The GJM's decision to resign from GTA comes after an all-party meeting in the hills where it was decided that the party would withdraw from the tripartite GTA Accord.

In the June 20 meeting, all the political parties and public organisations of the hills had unanimously declared their support to the longstanding demand for a separate Gorkhaland state in north Bengal.

The GJM has been ruling GTA since 2012 and its five-year term is set to expire this month.

A tripartite agreement paving the way for the setting up of the GTA, an elected body for the Darjeeling hills, was signed in 2011. The parties to the agreement were the union home ministry, the state government and the GJM.

The GTA administers Darjeeling, Kurseong, Mirik, some areas of Siliguri subdivision of Darjeeling district and the whole of Kalimpong district.

Darjeeeling has been witnessing indefinite shutdown called by GJM.

The GJM has offered a 12-hour "window" to the schools in the Darjeeling hills to evacuate their students safely to Siliguri and Rongpo.

With supplies running out and the vacations to start shortly, the boarding schools of Darjeeling are facing a harrowing time due to the shutdown.

The indefinite shutdown has also hit hard the famed tea industry with the premium quality 'second flush' tea leaves going waste causing heavy losses to the garden owners and putting at stake the livelihood of more than two lakh tea workers.

Darjeeling is home to 87 tea gardens and the ongoing shutdown has pushed them to the brink.

The tea garden owners feel that they will be losing 45 per cent of their yearly revenue.