At a public event on January 2, Mamata Banerjee, the leader of the Trinamool Congress, is set to introduce an outreach program and lay out her party’s plan for the early 2023 panchayat elections.
According to two senior leaders who requested anonymity, the outreach will be in line with the call made by Abhishek Banerjee, the TMC’s national general secretary, for modernizing the ruling party in West Bengal.
On January 1, the TMC will commemorate its founding day. After leaving Congress, Mamata Banerjee founded the TMC in 1998.
Early the following year is likely to see the panchayat elections. The elections will be important because both the TMC and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party will use them as a gauge before the 2024 Lok Sabha election.
Earlier in August, dozens of billboards across Kolkata and its surroundings had appeared, portraying Abhishek Banerjee, the chief minister’s nephew. In the following six months, a brand-new rebuilt TMC was promised on the billboards.
However, this is not the first time the party has started an outreach program before a vote. The party had reaped substantial rewards from such initiatives like “Didi Ke Bolo” (Tell Didi), “Banglar Gorbo Mamata” (Mamata, the pride of Bengal), and “Bangla nijer meyekei chaye” (Bengal wants its daughter).
Even though the BJP was able to win 18 of West Bengal’s 42 Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 general election, making significant gains in several regions of the state, the TMC won a resounding victory in the 2021 assembly elections, returning to power for the third consecutive term.
Abhishek Banerjee’s calls for a new and reformed TMC are all the more crucial in light of the fact that at least three party leaders, including two heavyweights in Partha Chatterjee and Anubrata Mondol, have been detained by government authorities and that the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana has given rise to allegations of corruption and nepotism against the party.
The TMC’s top rung is soiled, therefore the BJP poked fun at the anticipated endeavor by calling it a mere eyewash.
News Mania Desk
