Siliguri: BJP candidate for Darjeeling Lok Sabha seat SS Ahluwalia on Monday held media responsible for coining the term `Gorkhaland` to gain mileage from the issue.
"The Gorkhaland term has been created by a part of the media only to gain from it," the veteran BJP leader said, a day after terming the statehood demand for Gorkhaland `legitimate`.
"I would not comment anything in this matter and would follow whatever my party has mentioned in its manifesto," he added.
Ahluwalia at an election rally yesterday, in presence of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha chief Bimal Gurung, had said that his party would consider the demand for Gorkhaland, if it comes to power.
"The demand for Gorkhaland is no crime. The Gorkhas can never be dissuaded from making this demand and my party will sympathetically consider the demand if elected to power," Ahluwalia had said.
The BJP vice-president also drew flak from lawyers in this connection during his visit to the Siliguri Bar Association during a campaigning today.
Alhuwalia got involved in a war of words and hurriedly left the Association building when a group of lawyers asked him whether BJP has got the requisition required for the creation of a separate state.
"Ahluwalia is playing the same political game what Jaswant Sinha had played during the last Lok Sabha elections," advocate Kishanlal Lohia alleged.
"He knows that creation of Gorkhaland is beyond impossible... It`s only an attempt to disturb the peaceful atmosphere in the state and break the bondage between the people in the Hills and the plains," Lohia added.
