'Didi Ke Bolo' to help Trinamool select candidates for 2020 civic elections

Kolkata: The performance of party workers in effective implementation of 'Didi Ke Bolo' will be a yardstick for selection of Trinamool candidates in the civic polls to be held next year, party sources said.

According to the sources, only those aspirants who impress the Trinamool Congress leadership with their performance will be given tickets to contest the polls to Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and 107 municipalities.

The party leadership has also decided to conduct a survey to assess its support base and penetration of the BJP in 107 municipalities of the state and KMC that will go to polls in 2020. The elections to the civic bodies are being tipped as "mini Assembly elections", ahead of the crucial 2021 Assembly polls in the state.

Party sources said that the 'Didi Ke Bolo' initiative and the survey results will act as a filter in the exercise of selecting candidates and weeding out the undeserving aspirants.

"The third phase of Didi Ke Bolo began early this week. So it is likely to be over by December and the internal party survey will also be concluded by January next year. The reports will be submitted to our party supremo Mamata Banerjee and the top leadership. After that, the list of candidates will be prepared accordingly," a TMC leader said. The municipal polls have acquired more importance due to the BJP making deep inroads in the state and emerging as the main challenger to the ruling TMC, by pushing out Congress and Left Front to distant third and fourth positions respectively.

Following Trinamool's Lok Sabha poll performance which was below expectation, the party had appointed poll strategist Prashant Kishor and his team I-PAC to shore up its popularity in the state ahead of the 2021 Assembly election.

Trinamool Congress has on Wednesday launched the third phase of 'Didi ke Bolo' initiative to reach out to people and over 600 block and town presidents of the party were asked to visit more than 2,000 villages and municipal wards across the state. In the first phase of the initiative, a helpline number and the website -didikebolo.com, were launched by Chief Minister and Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee on July 29. Close to 500 senior TMC leaders and MLAs had conducted outreach programmes in 1,022 villages in the first phase of the initiative.