Morcha stage destroyed

Alipurduar, April 26: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha today alleged that a half-completed stage for a party meeting had been vandalised in Dalmore tea garden in the Dooars last night at a time the hill outfit was purportedly losing a lot of supporters to the Trinamul Congress in the area. Morcha leader Pradeep Pradhan didn’t point fingers at anybody for the destruction of the stage and the party was yet to a lodge a police complaint. On the other hand, Trinamul alleged that Morcha members had damaged and burned its flags at Dalmore and the nearby Bandapani garden last night. The Morcha members had only erected the foundation of the stage with bamboo poles and were supposed to finish the work today. As the structure had been damaged, the party today held the meeting in open air at Garo Basti in Dalmore, 73km from here. The meeting was addressed by Pradhan, a vice-president of the Morcha. “The stage was destroyed by miscreants last night. We don’t know who they are. The local leaders will lodge a complaint with police later. Today, at least 2,500 people attended the meeting and I can say none of our supporters have joined any other party. If anybody claims so, then it is baseless,” said Pradhan, who is also the chairman of the GTA Sabha. He was alluding to Trinamul’s claim that more than 2,000 Morcha supporters had joined the party in Dalmore and Bandapani of late. In a complaint lodged with Birpara police, Trinamul alleged that the party’s flags had been damaged and burnt by Morcha supporters at the two places last night. “Almost 2,000 people had left the Morcha and joined Trinamul in the Dalmore-Bandapani region recently. Being annoyed with it, Morcha cadres destroyed our flags last night,” said Pankoj Das, the president of the Birpara block committee of Trinamul. Pradhan said the Morcha would hold another meeting at Jaigaon on April 30. Observers said the Morcha was holding the meetings to boost the morale of the cadres when its support base was eroding. Akash Magharia, the additional superintendent of police of Alipurduar, said: “We received a complaint from Trinamul leaders saying their flags had been damaged by Morcha. We have started an investigation. We are yet to receive a complaint from the Morcha on damage to any structure.”