Overview
- A tripartite meeting chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday, August 22, led to the formation of a high-level committee under interlocutor Pankaj Kumar Singh to draw up a final agreement.
- The committee’s mandate is to draft modalities for a 'permanent political solution' within India’s constitutional framework and to consult stakeholders in the hills, the Terai and the Dooars before reporting back to the Ministry of Home Affairs.
- Senior hill leaders and state officials at the Sukna meeting included GJM’s Bimal Gurung, GNLF’s Mann Ghisingh, Darjeeling MP Raju Bista and West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, signalling a tripartite negotiation process.
- The Centre pledged sympathetic consideration of other local demands and said it would provide adequate central funding for pending issues, but it gave no legal form, timetable or guarantee of statehood.
- The move restarts a long-running process rooted in past accords such as the 1988 DGHC and the 2011–12 GTA, both widely seen as insufficient by hill communities, leaving core questions about autonomy and statehood unresolved.