BJP Will Consider Gorkhaland: SS Ahluwalia

SUKNA: The demand for a separate state in the Darjeeling hills is legitimate and constitutionally valid, BJP Lok Sabha candidate S S Ahluwalia on Sunday said.

Addressing an election rally at Sukna, near Siliguri, Ahluwalia, the BJP nominee from Darjeeling constituenc, said in the presence of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha chief Bimal Gurung that his party would consider the demand for Gorkhaland, if it comes to power.

"The demand for Gorkhaland is no crime. The Gorkhas can never be dissuaded from making this demand and my party will sympathetically consider the demand if elected to power," Ahluwalia said.

He accused the West Bengal government of confusing the Lepcha, Tamang and other communities in the hills on the issue.

Morcha president Bimal Gurung in his speech mocked at Mamata Banerjee's call for making Darjeeling the Switzerland of the east and alleged that in the last two and a half years no development had taken place. Gurung appealed to GNLF president Subash Ghising, who had first raised the demand for Gorkhaland back in the 1980s, to support the GJM's stir.