Though officially, the Congress has announced it is not in favour of dividing West Bengal — Pranab Mukherjee has been categorical in denouncing a separate state of Gorkhaland saying the issue is different from that of Telangana — the GJM leadership’s hopes stem from Union Home Minister P Chidambaram’s reported assurance that “Gorkhaland would be put on a fast track”. GJM leaders had met the home minister in New Delhi on December 11.

Over the last few years, the Gorkha leadership has cultivated and engaged key Congress leaders, including Sonia Gandhi, in track-II diplomacy. GJM leaders admit in private that virtually everyone had turned down their request for support but they are not willing to give up hope. The back-channel diplomacy continues with intermediaries based in Delhi and sympathetic to the Gorkha cause playing a crucial role. The emergence of Lt General Vijay Madan as an interlocutor is a case in point. The former Army officer had been associated with the Gorkhas during his service days and continues to have great admiration for them.

“If the Centre concedes Telangana, they will have to give us Gorkhaland. They can’t have double standards,” said senior Morcha leader Roshan Giri.

Meanwhile, the situation in Darjeeling and the plains was quite normal with tourists pouring in. “We are doing brisk business as it is quite calm here now. We wonder whether it is the proverbial lull before the storm,” a shopkeeper at Darjeeling Mall said.

Senior state officials, some of whom have been associated with the issue, however, said: “The Union home secretary has done what bureaucrats are known to be experts at — put the issue on the back-burner for 45 days. No headway has been made in this round of talks. Everyone knows the position of each political party on the issue of creation of Gorkhaland. To have a consensus on the issue is far-fetched.”