"We are not going to concede to the demand for a separate Gorkhaland. Just short of that anything can be discussed. DGHC or no DGHC, our focus is on the development of the hills through more regional autonomy," said Chief Secretary Amit Kiran Deb at the Writers' Buildings.

This is being seen as a policy shift since Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had earlier said on June 17, after chairing an all-party meeting to solve the Darjeeling impasse, that he was ready to sit with the Morcha leaders without any pre-condition.

A four-member GJM delegation led by central committee member Amar Lama has already arrived in the city to meet the Chief Minister. The chief secretary further said that the Chief Minister would meet the Morcha leaders.

Home Secretary Asok Mohan Chakrabarti said that tomorrow's talks tomorrow would centre on bringing back normalcy to the hills. "Unless you bring back normalcy you cannot bring about development,'' Chakrabarti said at his office at Writers' Buildings.

On being asked as to whether the state government would take the initiative for tripartite talks, he said many issues will have to be looked into. "First you will have to fix the agenda and then you will have to decide the parties who will be present. It's not easy,'' Chakrabarti said.

On their part, the Morcha leaders said they would meet the Chief Minister as scheduled. "We have been invited by the Chief Minister and we are going to meet him tomorrow as scheduled. As we have already said, we don't want to raise the demand for a separate state before the Chief Minister. We will only urge him to facilitate tripartite talks as early as possible. We don't want to comment on what the chief secretary has also said,'' said Anmol Prasad, a member of the delegation.

He said that the Morcha hoped to achieve its demand for Gorkhaland through talks. "The Chief Minister's stand is: take anything but Gorkhaland and our stand is: we will take nothing but Gorkhaland. We are ready to continue the talks and we will not stop unless we get it. We believe we will get it soon, and in our lifetime only,'' Prasad said.