Three groups want 3 states out of same Bengal districts.

Three separate groups want an equal number of new states carved out of the same districts in West Bengal.

A day after activists of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha ( GJM) began a fast- untodeath for Gorkhaland, a nine- party coalition - Separate State Demand Committee ( SSDC) - started an indefinite hunger strike to press for a separate Greater Cooch Behar state. It is being led by Greater Cooch Behar Democratic Party ( GCDP) general secretary Phanindranath Burman. He said the fast at Dinhata would continue till the Centre accepted the demand.

The Kamtapur Progressive Party ( KPP) and the Kamtapur Women's Organisation ( KWO) joined the SSDC. They want a separate state of Kamtapur.

But Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said: " The demand for Telangana is 60 years old. This does not mean new states are to be created everywhere." Cooch Behar had turned into a battlefield in 2005 when the police fired at a GCDP rally and arrested its leader Bangshibadan Burman and 58 others. Violence had taken place even last year when the GCDP organised a hunger strike to demand the release of its arrested leaders and activists.

The Kamtapur Liberation Organisation, which believes in an armed struggle to achieve a separate Kamtapur nation, is also regrouping in the area after the military crackdown against it in the jungles of Bhutan in 2003.

The situation in North Bengal is fast turning volatile as two organisations have decided to oppose the demands for separate states. The Adivasi Vikash Parishad ( AVP) has threatened to launch a militant agitation if there was any plan to include Terai and Dooars in the proposed Gorkhaland.

The Bangla Bhasa Bachao Samity, also opposed to the idea of Gorkhaland and any division of the state.

• Apart from Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong, the map of the proposed Gorkhaland circulated by GJM includes Siliguri, Malbazar, Bhaktinagar, Nagrakata, Banarhat, Birpara, Madarihat, Joigaon, Kalchini and Kumargram subdivisions.

• The KPP has demanded six districts of West Bengal and four of Assam to be included in its proposed Kamtapur state. These include Cooch Behar, Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, North and South Dinajpur and Malda in Bengal and Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon, Dhubri and Goalpara in Assam.

• The GCDP wants to get back the original princely state of Cooch Behar that included the Cooch Behar district parts of Assam and even Bangladesh.