Darjeeling: Union Home Minister Amit Shah will embark on a north Bengal tour. He will be arriving at the Bagdogra airport on Thursday night by a special aircraft from Delhi, sources in the administration said. After the landing of the aircraft at Alpha Zone of the Indian Air Force Cantonment (Bagdogra airport), the Union Minister will go to Mayfair Tea Resort by road at Shalbari near Siliguri for a night halt.
The next day i.e; on Friday morning, the Union Home Minister will again be leaving for the Bagdogra airport to take a helicopter to visit the neighbouring state of Bihar. Shah will address a public meeting on Friday at Yogabani Maidan in Bihar's Araria district.
However, this short visit of the Union Home Minister is considered politically significant in political circles. According to party sources, Shah is scheduled to hold a high-level meeting with BJP ministers, MPs and MLAs on Friday morning before leaving for Bihar.
Union Ministers Nisith Pramanik, John Barla, MP Raju Bista, Jayanta Roy, Rajya Sabha MP Anant Maharaj, MLAs Anandamoy Barman, Neeraj Jimba, Vishnuprasad Sharma, Manoj Tigga and others are likely to attend the meeting, sources in the party said.
Sikkim Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang is also expected to meet Amit Shah. Shah's brief visit to north Bengal has raised many eyebrows in the West Bengal political circles.
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North Bengal's Siliguri MLA Shankar Ghosh will skip the meeting as he is in Malda in connection with party-related work. However, speculations are doing rounds in the political circles that the issue of a separate state carved out of West Bengal may crop up again in the meeting before the commencement of the 24th Lok Sabha elections.
Making north Bengal a separate state and finding a permanent political solution for the Hills and others will come up for discussion during the meeting. Even before the start of the special session of Parliament on September 20 and 21, the members of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, youth wing, will stage a protest march in New Delhi's Jantar Mantar demanding a separate state.
During the high-level meeting with the Home Minister, the law and order situation in north Bengal is likely to be one of the agendas for discussion. Matigara Naxalbari MLA Anandamoy Barman said, "The Union Home Minister after staying at a hotel on Thursday night, is likely to hold a meeting with BJP Ministers, MPs, and MLAs."
Gorkha Janmukti Morcha general secretary Roshan Giri said, "We will try to seek an audience with the Union Home Minister. A memorandum will be submitted to the Union Home Minister seeking a political solution to the Hills."
