After Didi’s Darjeeling rally, BJP ally GNLF opposes NRC & CAA

DARJEELING: The Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF), BJP’s ally in the Hills, for the first time opposed the National Register of Citizens and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act on Tuesday.
The GNLF had earlier refrained from clarifying its stand on the two issues but, with West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee organising a rally in Darjeeling on Wednesday, the party said both NRC and CAA would affect the Gorkha community in their present form.
The GNLF also came out against the National Population Register (NPR). “The gazette notification on CAA and NPR shows that Gorkhas will be affected if both of them are implemented in their present form,” Mahendra Chhetri, spokesman of GNLF, said.
“One of the documents required to prove citizenship is parents’ the birth certificate. Not many Gorkhas have this. This will only create panic in the community,” Chhetri said.
Chhetri then rekindled the issue of putting Darjeeling under the Sixth Schedule, which he says is the only way to counter NRC and CAA.
“When CAA was passed, the Union home minister had said nothing in this section shall apply to the tribal areas of Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya and Mizoram, which are under the Sixth Schedule and covered under the Inner Line Permit. So, our party demands inclusion of Hills in the Sixth Schedule,” Chhetri said.
Keshav Raj Pokhrel, general secretary of the central committee of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (Binoy Tamang faction), however, said covering areas under the Sixth Schedule would not stop NRC from being implemented.