Gorkhaland: GJM collects funds from tea garden workers for the first time

Darjeeling: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha’s trade union has started a fund collection drive amounting to a day’s wage from tea garden workers across the Darjeeling hills for the Gorkhaland agitation. The drive, launched yesterday, is estimated to raise around Rs 60 lakh, GJM sources said. The hills have 87 tea gardens and they together employ 65,000 workers, most of whom are members of the Morcha-affiliated Darjeeling Terai Dooars Plantation Labour Union. The daily wage of a worker is Rs 90.

Bimal Gurung, the president of the Morcha, was today handed over 1,400kg of rice and Rs 50,000 collected by the outfit’s Darjeeling Sadar-1 constituency unit. Addressing the function, Gurung said, “We are grateful to everyone as our people are voluntarily contributing both in cash and kind. I have been told that tea garden workers will also be donating a day’s wage and that our trade union has already passed a resolution to help in the collection.” Suraj Subba, the general secretary of the Darjeeling Terai Dooars Plantation Labour Union, said the workers were voluntarily contributing wages.

“Workers are voluntarily coming and donating their wages to our local units. There is no call for a fund collection. Our union is just co-ordinating the collection,” he said. This is the first time that the Morcha is collecting funds from the people. The GNLF in 1986 had collected similar funds from people during its Gorkhaland agitation days. Sources said apart from the Darjeeling Sadar-I unit of the Morcha, other constituents were also expected to collect funds and rice from the common people. Students are also collecting donations for the statehood agitation.

The collection is likely to cover even the cinchona plantation workers, whose daily wage is Rs 183. The cinchona plantations employ around 5,000 people. Both the cinchona and tea plantations were kept out of the agitation’s purview so far. The drive comes at a time when the state government is cracking down on supporters funding the Gorkhaland movement. Police said a businessman, Ashoke Periwal, had been arrested last night from Kalimpong for showing black flag to North Bengal Development Minister Gautam Deb on February 12 and for allegedly vandalising a police outpost. The sources said the police were keeping a watch over Periwal for allegedly funding the Morcha. Periwal’s lawyer however, said he was arrested in Siliguri and not Kalimpong. Meanwhile, Roshan Giri, general secretary of the Morcha, said that the organisation had filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court, challenging the August 14 High Court order, terming the ‘Ghar Bhitra Janata’ (stay-at home) programme illegal during Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s visit to the hills at the invitation of the Lepcha community on September 2 and 3.

PTI