Statesman News Service
GANGTOK, Feb. 25: A large number of tourists remain stranded in Sikkim due to the GJMM convened bandh in the Darjeeling Hills. The National Highway 31A, which is the lifeline to Sikkim passes through the Kalimpong sub-division in Darjeeling district. The bandh has affected the National Highway disrupting movement to and from Sikkim. It has also left the tourists stranded.
The stranded tourists today approached several offices including the state tourism department, Sikkim Nationalised Transport and the police urging for an arrangement to reach Siliguri.
“I purchased a tatkal rail ticket to travel from New Jalpaiguri to Surat spending Rs 6,000 but could not leave Sikkim. The ticket is non-refundable, which means I have lost the money,” lamented Mr Ashok Modi a tourist from Gujarat.
Another tourist Mr S R Kale from Pune said: “I have to catch the Darjeeling Mail from New Jalpaiguri on 27 February. It looks impossible now.”
The stranded tourists also approached the police in Gangtok. They appealed to the DIG Range Mr Akshay Sachdeva to arrange for their transport but no help came from that end either.
Extracted from Pakistan Defence India’s “Chief Executive” in Gangtok wrote: “Sikkim’s merger was necessary for Indian national interest. And we worked to that end. Maybe if the Chogyal had been smarter and played his cards better, it wouldn’t have turned out the way it did.” It is also said that the real battle was not between the Chogyal and Kazi Lendup Dorji but between their wives. On one side was Queen Hope Cook, the American wife of the Chogyal and on the other was the Belgian wife of the Kazi, Elisa-Maria Standford. “This was a proxy war between the American and the Belgian,” says former chief minister BB Gurung. But there was a third woman involved: Indira Gandhi in New Delhi. Chogyal Palden met the 24-year-old New Yorker Hope Cook in Darjeeling in 1963 and married her. For Cook, this was a dream come true: to become the queen of an independent kingdom in Shangrila. She started taking the message of Sikkimese independence to the youth, and the allegations started flying thic...
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