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Shubhadeep Choudhury
Tribune News Service
Kolkata, June 24
The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM)-led agitation for a separate state (Gorkhaland) has entered a new phase. The stir is attracting an endless stream of supporters who flooded the streets of Darjeeling today to demonstrate their support for the Gorkhaland demand.
The transformation of the stir into a mass movement also became evident from the resignation of two Trinamool Congress (TMC) municipal councillors in Kalimpong today who later joined the GJM.
Fifteen boards and councils set up by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for ethnic minorities in the hills to wean them away from the Gorkhaland demand are also crumbling under pressure as the chairman of one of these boards resigned today.
The representatives of only two of the 15 boards and councils had taken part in the botched all-party meet called by the state government in Siliguri on June 21. Protesters, a very large number of them ladies, marched through the streets of Darjeeling in several places today and assembled at Chowkbazar as the indefinite shutdown in the Darjeeling hills called by the GJM entered the 13th day today.
Internet services remained suspended for the seventh day today while local cable channels also remained blocked in certain parts of the hills.
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