Mamata to hit LS campaign trail on March 31with rally in Mahua’s support in Krishnanagar

PTI, Kolkata, Mar 26, 2024 :   West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who heads the Trinamool Congress, will kick-start campaigning for the Lok Sabha polls on March 31, a party leader said on Tuesday.

Banerjee, who sustained a major injury on her forehead after a fall at her residence on March 14, has been advised by doctors to rest, and because of this, she has been absent from the campaign trail.

“Our party supremo will begin the poll campaign on March 31. She will address her first rally in Krishnanagar’s Dhubulia in Nadia district. There, she will campaign for TMC’s Krishnanagar candidate Mahua Moitra and Ranaghat candidate Mukut Mani Adhikari,” the party leader told PTI.

Banerjee had announced the party’s candidates for the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal from a mega rally in Kolkata’s Brigade Parade Grounds on March 10. 

Adhikari, a BJP MLA switched to the ruling Trinamool Congress earlier this month during Mamata’s rally in Kolkata on the eve of International Women’s Day. Mahua, on the other hand has been getting the party supremo’s support since she was expelled as Lok Sabha MP for alleged unethical conduct over the cash-for-query scam. 

Mamata had said Moitra will come back stronger in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. The report of Mamata starting Lok Sabha election campaigning from Krishnanagar comes at a time when the CBI has conducted searches on the premises of Moitra in multiple locations in connection with the alleged cash-for-query case, officials said. 

The searches took place on Saturday at Moitra's residences in Kolkata, Krishnanagar, and Karimpur in West Bengal. The CBI team after completing its searches at Moitra’s rented residence at Krishnanagar, went to her Karimpur accommodation in the same district on Saturday night, they added. There they had to break open the lock to enter the house, an officer said, adding that the raid is still on. 

Another team searched her apartment at Alipore in Kolkata, where Moitra's father Dipendra Lal Moitra resides. The search lasted for about seven hours before the CBI officials left. CBI officers were accompanied by central forces when they raided the apartment in Alipore area in the southern part of the city. 

The CBI registered an FIR against the former Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP on Thursday on the directives of the Lokpal, which has instructed the agency to file a report within six months, they said. Moitra, who represented Krishnanagar Lok Sabha seat, was expelled from the House in December. 

The TMC has fielded her again from the seat. The former MP has challenged her expulsion in the Supreme Court.