Edwards warns of mass resignation in GTA over interlocutor issue
The Statesman | 19 November 2025
Ajoy Edwards, chief of the Indian Gorkha Janshakti Front (IGJF) and an elected Sabhasad of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA), has written to Chief Minister 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, non-functional 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.
Accusing both the state government and a “single individual in Darjeeling” of running the GTA through “whims and fancies,” Edwards said democratic processes have been systematically undermined. He pointed out that elections due in 2017 were suspended for nearly five years, and that even the mandatory quarterly meetings of the GTA Sabha have been grossly ignored, with only three meetings held in the past three years.
The IGJF chief further alleged large-scale corruption, claiming that GTA and municipal properties are being allotted on 30-year terms “without Sabha meetings, without records and without consulting elected representatives.” Such actions, he said, were “political transactions” rather than governance decisions.
Edwards wrote that the “calm” in the Hills was not a sign of good governance but “the silence of a tired people who have endured four decades of broken promises and failed institutions.” He added that opposition sabhasads in the GTA are “seriously considering mass resignation,” saying they cannot legitimise a body being run like a “personal fiefdom.”
On the issue of the interlocutor, Edwards acknowledged the Chief Minister’s constitutional concerns but urged her to keep “an open mind.”
He said the Gorkhas are aware that the Centre’s move may be “an election lollipop” ahead of the Assembly polls, similar to promises made in earlier years. Yet, given the “total failure” of the GTA and the “deep corruption,” even a small possibility of sincerity from the Centre offers “a sliver of hope” to the people, he argued.
Reiterating the long-standing political aspiration of the Gorkhas for “separation from Bengal under a constitutional framework,” Edwards said the experiments of DGHC and GTA have proven that “structures controlled from Kolkata cannot deliver justice, autonomy or respect.”
Rejecting the state government’s move to oppose the interlocutor, Edwards said dialogue should not be shut down before it begins. “We are accountable to our people, not to political compulsions,” he wrote, urging the Chief Minister to reconsider her stand.