Trinamul Congress readies micro details for Abhishek Banerjee

Mamata Banerjee’s nephew is likely to visit north Bengal on September 10, and attend a public meeting of tea workers in Malbazar

Abhishek Banerjee (M) File Picture

TT Bureau   |   Calcutta, Siliguri   |  24.08.22  : Trinamul Congress leaders working at the block level in a number of districts of north Bengal are readying details of their respective areas, down to the panchayat level, in a format for reports they are to submit to the party’s all-India general-secretary Abhishek Banerjee to better plan its road map for panchayat elections for next year.

The leaders, many of whom have been made office-bearers of the parent party and youth, women and labour wings, are busy collating the data, ahead of a visit by Abhishek next month.

“He (Abhishek) has instructed us to prepare reports on every panchayat and block. It would include an overview of the current political situation of the area, and a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis. It is also to include the extent to which welfare schemes have been extended to local residents and the critical gaps that need to be bridged. The party wants to have a clear, concise idea of every such block and accordingly draw up plans,” said a Trinamul functionary of Jalpaiguri.

Mamata Banerjee’s nephew is likely to visit north Bengal on September 10, and attend a public meeting of tea workers in Malbazar of Jalpaiguri district.

“During his visit, we are expecting some more instructions from him. Last month, when he was in Dhupguri (also in Jalpaiguri), he had underscored a number of issues and had told us to gather details of our areas,” the party leader added.

According to party insiders, Trinamul in north Bengal is focusing on districts where the saffron camp managed decent results even amid the BJP’s electoral decimation in most parts of the state in the Assembly polls last year. Among these are Alipurduar – a district where Trinamul couldn’t win a single seat –Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar where Trinamul managed only a few wins.

These are also the districts where the BJP won the Lok Sabha seats in 2019.

“We will pull all stops to ensure that the mandate in the rural polls is favourable for us. This would also be a test for us ahead of the 2024 general election,” said a Trinamul insider.

Abhishek has been meeting leaders of districts, one at a time, over the past few weeks and issuing instructions not only for such preparations and reorganisation of the district units but also for warning against 2018-like highhandedness in the rural polls to ensure sweeps – against which major popular bitterness was evident from the Lok Sabha election results in 2019.

On Tuesday, he met at his Camac Street office the leadership of East Midnapore and East Burdwan. He has already done this with Malda, Murshidabad, Darjeeling, North and South Dinajpur, Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri, West Midnapore, Jhargram.

“As in the case of other districts, he said we can afford to lose a few seats here and there, but there must be no excesses. We need to gauge the actual extent of popular support for us ahead of the Lok Sabha election of 2024,” said a Trinamul MP.

“He also reminded everyone that clean image, ability, and general acceptance would be prioritised in consideration for candidature for the 77,000-odd candidates, over everything else. He said the entire party ecosystem has to stand united against every official candidate,” he added.

At the end of this ongoing exercise, Abhishek and the chief minister are likely to attend a meeting with the organisational leadership and office-bearers of the party right down to the grassroots, sometime in the first half of September. The meeting, with several thousand attendees, is likely to take place at the Netaji Indoor Stadium and a date would soon be fixed, according to the convenience of Mamata and Abhishek.

“Some believe all this is being done in the wake of the arrest by central probe agencies of (Trinamul heavyweights) Partha Chatterjee and Anubrata Mondal, and amid hyperactivity of the agencies. But this was expected to take place around this time anyway,” said the Trinamul MP.

Sometime next week, Abhishek is likely to sit with the Birbhum leadership to discuss the further course of action of the party, in the absence of Mondal.

After the arrest of Mondal in an alleged cattle smuggling case by the CBI, the state leadership formed a five-member committee to carry on political activities in the district. The five-member committee comprises Rampurhat MLA and deputy Speaker Ashis Banerjee, Labhpur MLA Abhijit Sinha, minister and Bolpur MLA Chandranath Sinha, zilla parishad chief and Suri MLA Bikash Roy Chowdhury, and the party’s vice-president Malay Mukherjee.

The committee members have already convened separate meetings with the party leaders in Rampurhat, Suri and Bolpur sub-divisions. Trinamul will hold a rally against the BJP’s “anti-people” policies and “biased” activities of the central agencies in Bengal.

The Trinamul leadership in Calcutta has asked the district leaders to hold rallies and meetings in every gram panchayat area, to keep the shoulders of the party’s rank and file from drooping. The party would organise a district-wide protest rally at every panchayat next week.

“The committee can handle things for now, but we need a permanent head to guide us in case Anubrata is absent for a long time,” said a Birbhum leader.

In 2018, Trinamul was accused of winning a large number of rural body seats without contest, allegedly by stopping the Opposition from filing their nomination. Birbhum set a dubious record by securing 84 per cent of the rural body seats without any contest.