DHARAMSHALA, January 13: A key player in New Delhi’s power politics and the ruling party in West Bengal, the All India Trinamool Congress Party, has pledged to support an ‘All-Party Parliamentary Resolution on the Tibet crisis.’
Indian Member of Parliament and Party Whip, Derek O’ Brein gave the assurance on his party’s behalf to a Tibetan parliamentary delegation, which has been lobbying in the state, seeking international intervention in the ongoing crisis in Tibet.
The four-member Tibetan delegation met the Trinamool Congress leader in Kolkata during which he “directed the Tibetan delegates to engage in a tri-step coordinated action of ‘education, orientation, and direction’ to gauge and secure a substantial diplomatic action from Indian policy makers.”
“Shri Derek pledged his party’s support for an ‘All-Party Parliamentary resolution on the crisis inside Tibet,’” Tibetan MP and member of the delegation, Dhardon Sharling said. AITC has a total of 28 Members of Parliament at the Center with a breakdown of nine MPs in the Rajya Sabha and 19 MPs in the Lok Sabha.
The Tibetan MPs also held a 30-minute meeting with the speaker of the State Legislative Assembly, Shri Biman Banerjee, at his office at the Vidhan Sabha.
According to Sharling, the speaker “lauded the functioning of Tibetan democracy in exile as exemplary for other fledgling democracies” and further advised the Tibetan leadership to seek an ‘All-Party Parliamentary resolution on the crisis inside Tibet’ in both houses of the Parliament.
On the final day of their five-day lobbying campaign in West Bengal, the Tibetan delegation convened a press conference on January 11 and screened the 30-minute film on self-immolations, ‘Tibet, the Burning Question for Freedom.’
The lobbying campaign in Kolkata city concluded with a ‘Mass solidarity rally for Tibet’ in which more than 200 local Indians and Tibetans marched in the heart of the city, holding candles and chanting prayers in solidarity with Tibetans inside Tibet.
During their lobbying campaign in the state, the Tibetan MPs met with a wide array of leaders from all political backgrounds, including the honorable Governor Shri MK Narayanan, Shri Aroop Biswas, Minister for Youth Affairs, Shri Jyoti Pria Mollick, Minister for Food, Shri Ansur Rehman, MLA from the Communist Party of India, Marxist (CPIM), and Shri Pramod Chandra Sinha, MLA from Democratic Socialist Party.
Three Tibetan parliamentary delegations are currently on a nation-wide lobbying campaign, meeting Indian leaders and the public, apprising them on the ongoing wave of self-immolations in Tibet, which continued into the new year with the fiery death of a Tibetan youth, Tsering Tashi, on January 12 in eastern Tibet.
The Dharamshala based Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile launched the month long all-India lobbying campaign aimed at garnering wider support for international intervention in the ongoing crisis inside Tibet.
