Kolkata, June 14
External affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee today said the Centre was ready to hold talks with the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), but there should not be any preconditions. He was talking to newspersons here after a meeting with state Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. The Centre was against the formation of Gorkhaland or any separate state. But the problems of the hill people should be looked into sympathetically and adequate steps be taken to redress these, he added.
The Chief Minister also phoned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and apprised him about the situation in Darjeeling. He sought the Centre’s help and cooperation in resolving the crisis.
Earlier in the morning, the Left Front at a meeting endorsed the Chief Minister’s stand in dealing with the Darjeeling problem. They also accepted the Chief Minister’s argument for not inviting GJM president Bimal Gurung to the all-party meeting on June 17 since the GJM was not a recognised political
party. Left Front chairman Biman Bose appealed to the political parties, irrespective of their ideological differences, to come forward and help the state government resolve the issue.
