By IANS,
Kolkata : West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee Sunday said he was hopeful that the Gorkhaland issue could be solved through dialogue, and asked people living in the hills to be patient till a solution was reached.
“No matter can be solved without dialogues. We will discuss the Gorkhaland issue and will try to come to a solution,” Bhattacharjee said in a meeting at Phansidewa in Darjeeling district of West Bengal.
“Tourist season is coming and the state government is taking everything into consideration before arriving at any solution,” he added.
A tri-partite meeting between the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM), and West Bengal and the central governments on the demand for a separate Gorkhaland in the Darjeeling hills is scheduled to be held in New Delhi later this month.
Earlier, Home Secretary Ashok Mohan Chakraborty said the central government had agreed to hold the meeting in the national capital, though the date and agenda of the talk were not confirmed then.
The GJM, led by its president Bimal Gurung, has been spearheading a movement in the hills for a separate Gorkhaland state, besides opposing the Sixth Schedule status for Darjeeling district that offers greater autonomy to the governing Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC).
Tripartite talks was a key demand of the GJM.
The party also organised an indefinite shutdown in the hills twice over its demand for a separate state, severely hitting tea industry and tourism.