Eye on Panchayats polls, TMC plans to hold 500 meetings in next 2 weeks

KOLKATA: In a bid to strengthen the party's organisation ahead of Panchayats elections, Trinamool Congress (TMC) has proposed to organise 500 meetings in the next two weeks to establish contact with common people.

The party will hold about 342 'Vijaya Sammelan' meetings between October 11 and 22, one in each block. It has been decided that two party workers—especially the old guards—per booth will be felicitated.

Senior party leaders said such a drive was being taken up by the party for the first time. "It will help the party to reach out to people and develop stronger bonds with them. At the same time, the old workers will be shown respect. Attempts will be made so that both the new and old party supporters work together to strengthen the base of the party," they added.

According to sources, TMC is gearing up for the Panchayats election scheduled to be held early next year. Party's chairperson, Mamata Banerjee, and its national general secretary, Abhishek Banerjee, had earlier emphasised that only leaders with clean image would be nominated in various seats in the three-tier Panchayats system. Moreover, stern action would be taken against anyone trying to scare supporters of the opposition parties. The Trinamool leaders claimed that both the BJP and the CPI(M) would face difficulties in fielding candidates in all seats for the Panchayats elections due to their poor organizational strength and dwindling support base. "The BJP and CPI(M) leaders are in a soup to select candidates. We want to face the election seriously and steps have been taken up to strengthen the party's base," the leaders added.

TMC has aimed at securing as many seats as possible in the Lok Sabha elections in 2024. In the 2018 Panchayats elections, TMC lost some seats at the Gram Panchayat and Panchayat Samity level due to betrayal. Similarly, in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, it lost several seats to BJP due to infighting.