Bengal government luring adivasis to counter Gorkhas: BJP

Kolkata, July 31: The BJP on Monday said the West Bengal government is trying to take the hill-centric unrest over the Gorkhaland issue to the plains of north Bengal and accused the ruling Trimool Congress of luring tribal leaders of Dooars region to clash with the agitating Gorkha community. The former president of Dooars Terai regiol unit of the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parshad (ABAVP), John Barla, was being pressured by the Trimool heavyweights to join their party and repeatedly asked about his stand on the ongoing Gorkha agitation, the BJP claimed.
“State Tourism Minister Gautam Deb went to Barla’s house, asking him to join hands with the Trimool Congress and lead the adivasis in the Terai-Dooars region to clash with the agitating Gorkhas,” Bharatiya Jata Party state Secretary Sayantan Basu told reporters here.
“We have got call recordings that show how the TMC leaders are putting pressure on Barla to take a stand against the Gorkhas. He is being followed by the state police and CID wherever he is going. They have followed him even to the BJP MLA guest house and state committee meetings,” he alleged. Echoing Basu’s claims, Manoj Tigga, the BJP legislator from north Bengal’s Madarihat, alleged that the state government was trying to bring back the atmosphere of unrest in the Dooars region that prevailed during the clash between Gorkhas and tribals in 2008. “The state government does not want to solve the dispute in the hills; rather they are trying to spread the arson in the plains of Dooars and Terai and bring back the environment of violence that prevailed during 2008-09,” he said. (IANS) 

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