CM to march in Women’s Day rally

Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee will march in the Women’s Day rally scheduled to take place on March 8.

The rally organised by the women’s wing of the party will start at 2 pm from Shyambazar five point crossing and end at Dorina Crossing.

According to the party workers the rally carries a quite amount of importance ahead of the Assembly elections. All women candidates from Kolkata including Smita Bakshi, Sashi Panja and Mala Saha will march along with Banerjee in the rally.

The women candidates from all South Bengal districts, mainly from Howrah, Hooghly, North and South 24 Parganas will also be attending the rally.

As the candidates are busy campaigning in their own area, women representatives of the party from North Bengal will be participating in the rally.

Besides the candidates, thousands of women supporters of the party from across the state will be attending the rally which is organised annually on Women’s Day.

It may be mentioned that Trinamool Congress has fielded 45 women candidates in the Assembly elections this time compared to 33 in 2011. Moreover, soon after the change of power in the state, Banerjee had prepared a blueprint to implement various projects for the development of women.

“We are eagerly waiting for the rally as Mamata Banerjee will take part in it. We will also be participating in it as the Trinamool Congress government works for the empowerment of women and several steps were taken for the same in the past four and a half years,” said Barnali Ghosh, a resident of Baranagar area.

It may be recalled that the Trinamool Congress government had introduced a project called Kanyashree which helped in bringing down the drop-out rates in schools as well as the menace of child marriage. The project was the brainchild of the Chief Minister and it earned recognition of UNICEF, UNESCO and UK’s Department for International Development.

The city police have started making necessary arrangements so that common people do not get hampered by the rally. A senior officer of the city police’s traffic department said that they have plans to divert all South bound vehicles through alternate routes from Shyambazar five point crossing as a result, avoiding traffic congestion during the rally.