Chief minister Mamata Banerjee arrived in Siliguri 24 hours before the signing of the tripartite agreement between the Centre, the state government and the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM).
The tripartite agreement will be signed at around 3 pm in the presence of Union home minister P. Chidambaram and Ms Banerjee at the Pintail village, a picturesque location 6 km from Siliguri.
Ms Banerjee was given a rousing welcome upon her arrival at the Bagdogra airport by men, women and children standing on both sides of the road that she took to reach Sukna Forest Bungalow. The crowd greeted her by shouting “Mamata Banerjee zindabad” and “Didi zindabad” slogans.
In the run-up to the Assembly elections, Ms Banerjee had promised to solve the Darjeeling issue within three months of coming to power.
July 18, when the tripartite agreement will be signed, will be the 58th day of her chief ministership. She is all set to keep her promise one month before the deadline she had herself set.
Originally, the agreement was scheduled to be signed at 11 am on Monday but now it has been rescheduled at 3 pm.
“On Monday morning, the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs will meet in Delhi to give its formal approval to the tripartite agreement for the formation of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), an independent autonomous authority which will replace the existing Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC),” highly placed sources in the state government revealed.
Last-minute preparations were going on in Pintail village. A huge shamiana is being erected in the sprawling maidan.
Stringent security measures will be in place when Ms Banerjee, Mr Chidambaram, Union ministers Dinesh Trivedi and Mukul Roy, GJM president Bimal Gurung, general secretary Roshan Giri and a host of political personalities and senior bureaucrats will assemble to witness what the chief minister has described as a “historic event”.
Although the enthusiasm in the Hills is on its peak, the agreement-signing ceremony will not be as spectacular an affair as was the first tripartite agreement which was signed in August 1988 mainly because the earlier agreement was signed in Darjeeling town while the venue for the signing of new agreement is Pintail village.
“This is the first step towards Gorkhaland. We are grateful to Didi as she has kept her promise. We expect to get the separate state in the next 2-3 years,” Shanta Rai, an activist of Nari Morcha, the women wing of the GJM, said in Salbari, near Pintail Village.
“We have suffered a lot due to prolonged agitation and frequent bandhs. This agreement will break the impasse,” Arjun Chettri, a luxury taxi driver in Siliguri said.
The GJM president Mr Gurung celebrated his birthday on Sunday. He could not have asked for a better birthday gift than the tripartite agreement although he will receive it a day later.