Mamata to meet party leaders to prepare blueprint for civic polls

Kolkata: Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee will meet party functionaries to prepare the blueprint for the forthcoming civic election at Netaji Indoor Stadium on March 2 and 3.

The Mayors of all corporations, Deputy Mayors, chairmen, vice-chairmen and councillors have been asked to attend the meeting, along with party leaders of blocks and wards on March 2. On March 3, she will talk to the councillors of Kolkata Municipal Corporation.

It has been learnt that she will discuss about the proposed blueprint the party is going to follow during the civic election and later the Assembly election in 2021.

As per the Lok Sabha election which was held in 2019, BJP is ahead of Trinamool Congress at 50 wards in Kolkata. BJP is also ahead of Trinamool in 100 seats in the Assembly segments. However, over the past few months BJP's success graph in Bengal has witnessed a steady decline. In all the three Assembly by-elections, the saffron party has lost handsomely to Trinamool, which has got back control over 8 municipalities in North 24-Parganas.

Meanwhile, 30 chairmen and vice-chairmen of different municipalities will have to forego their wards from where they had been elected five years ago, as the wards have been reserved for women candidates.

The important leaders who will have to forego their seats include Jitendra Tewari, Mayor of Asansol Municipal Corporation, Dulal Das, chairman of Maheshtala Municipality, Dilip Yadav of Uttarpara Municipality and Shankar Adhya of Bongaon Municipality.

Four mayor-in-council members of KMC will have to forego their seats due to reservation as well. These MIC members are Ratan Dey (roads), Debabrata Majumdar (solid waste management), Baisanar Chattopadhyay (housing) and Swapan Samaddar (bustee development).

Two borough committee chairmen, Susanta Ghosh (borough XII) and Indrajit Dasgupta (borough XVI), will also have to forego their seats. The KMC councillors who will not be able to contest from their respective wards are Pabitra Biswas of ward 33 in Beleghata, Nezamuddin Shams from ward 78 in Mominpore, Arup Chakraborty from ward 110 in Baghajatin, Sandipan Saha from ward 52 under New Market police station, Arun Kumar Das from ward 55 in Entally, Subrata Ghosh from ward 87 in Rashbehari, Tarun Mondal from ward 105 in Kasba and Debasish Mukherjee from ward 99 in Naktala. Mukherjee is the only Left councilor, while the others belong to the ruling party.

Political experts said it would be very interesting to watch how Banerjee is going to rehabilitate them. She has already said that the non-performing councillors will be dropped.

The party has already started to gather information about the performance of the councilors, along with their popularity and contact with local people.