Interlocutor issue: IGJF’s Edwards threatens mass resignation from GTA

Joy Edwards, chief of the Indian Gorkha Janshakti Front (IGJF) and an elected Sabhasad of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), has written to Chief Minister

- STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE

Mamata Banerjee criticising her objection to the central government-appointed interlocutor for the Hills and asserting that the GTA has "collapsed completely" as an institution.

The letter, written on Tuesday, comes a day after the Chief Minister informed Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the Centre's decision to appoint an interlocutor was unconstitutional and unnecessary in view of a "stable administrative structure" in the Hills. Edwards, however, countered that this portrayal "is completely divorced from ground reality."

Edwards said the GTA, like its predecessor DGHC, has become a "failed, nonfunctional and non-autonomous" body. He argued that the GTA Agreement of 2012 has "never been implemented in letter or spirit," and alleged a "deliberate political design" to keep the institution weak by not framing essential laws and procedures for 13 years.