West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday launched a mega outreach programme for the Trinamool Congress to connect to the grassroots, reported PTI. Apart from launching a party helpline number and a website to address people’s grievances, Banerjee announced that her party leaders and workers would spend time with local people.
The new campaign is called “Didike Bolo [Tell Didi]. “People can call directly and indicate their grievances at 9137091370 number or reach out to us through a website www.didikebolo.com,” said Banerjee.
This is the first time that Banerjee’s party has launched a campaign strictly in Bengali. “The campaign will be in Bangla as it is Bengal and the mother tongue is Bengali,” she said, reported The Hindu. “If I campaign in Assam it will be in Assamese, in south India then [in] language of those states or in Punjabi if we plan such a campaign there.” Earlier, all TMC campaigns were in English, Bengali, Hindi and Urdu.
More than 1,000 party leaders will reach out to 10,000 villages across the state over the next 100 days, she added. She, however, said there was no plan to engage paid full-time party workers. “That CPI(M) or BJP can do that as they have fixed deposits to maintain whole timers,” she said. “We do not have funds.”
Banerjee said that a “process of modernisation has started” in her party, reported DNA. She, however, did not specify if poll strategist Prashant Kishor has any role to play in it. Assembly elections in the state are due in 2021. Banerjee’s party has been facing stiff opposition from the Bharatiya Janata Party recently. The saffron party had performed really well in the Lok Sabha elections in West Bengal, winning 18 out of 42 seats, 16 more than it won in 2014. The TMC, on the other hand, won 22 seats.
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