The first halt of the Morcha leaders, including chief Bimal Gurung and Binoy Tamang, was the Dalsinghpara Durga Bari ground, 100km from Jalpaiguri town.
While Gurung claimed that it was a “simple get-together” for lunch hosted by Morcha supporters of Dalsinghpara, the Jalpaiguri district magistrate said it was an “indoor” event.
“There is no bar on indoor meetings. However, I have asked the police superintendent to look into the matter,” DM Smaraki Mahapatra, who was in Siliguri today, said when asked whether permission had been given to the Morcha to hold public meetings.
Gurung delivered speeches over the public address system. The Morcha chief was the last of the five speakers at Dalsinghpara where about 1,500 people were present. By the time John Barla, the adivasi leader who has joined hands with the Morcha, started speaking, Gurung had begun distributing laddoos among the crowd.
Gurung asked all communities — “the Bangali, Bihari, Muslim, adivasi and the Gorkhas to shout in favour of GTA for then only would development happen”.
“The politics of this state do not allow us to be united. Within a short time I will organise a meeting which will be participated by lakhs of people. It is a get-together and local people invited me for lunch. I have nothing against the chief minister but the government has wronged us,” Gurung told the crowd at Dalsinghpara.
His next halt was Beech tea estate where 500 people had come for the meeting.
A district intelligence official said the number of people attending the two meetings was around 2,000. “At Dalsinghpara, there were nearly 1500 people. The figure was less, around 500, in Beech,” he said.
A third meeting scheduled at the Satali Birsha Munda ground, also in Kalchini block, was cancelled because of shortage of time.(TT)
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