Sovan looks to boost morale of party workers ahead of Panchayat polls

Kolkata: Mayor Sovan Chatterjee, who is also the president of the South 24-Parganas unit of Trinamool Congress, on Sunday urged party workers to ensure victory of party candidates in all the seats, in the forthcoming Panchayat election.

He was addressing a conference of the party workers at Nikharighata in Canning on Sunday afternoon.

Chatterjee cautioned the party workers against malicious campaign by the Opposition. "The Opposition will circulate canard against us. But do not get scared and work together for the party."

Chatterjee maintained that before the results of 2016 Assembly elections were declared, the Opposition parties, along with a section of the media, had circulated that Trinamool Congress will not be able to come to power. But when results were out, it was seen that the people had given overwhelming support to Mamata Banerjee and the Opposition had virtually become non-existent.

Canning and its adjoining areas, where Sunday's meeting was held, used to be a CPI-M stronghold till 2016. From Panchayats to Assembly, all the seats were under CPI-M. The South 24-Parganas district committee of CPI-M was very strong and there were leaders like Samir Putatunda, Kanti Ganguly, Rezzak Mollah, Amal Majumdar and Sujan Chakraborty.

CPI-M had received a major blow when Putatunda left the party and joined the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), set up by Saifuddin Chowdhury. Mollah joined Trinamool Congress and Ganguly left the elections from Raidighi in 2011 and 2016.

Chatterjee said "it matters little who is leading the South 24-Parganas unit of Trinamool. People in Bengal have unflinching faith in Mamata Banerjee and we will have to work to strengthen her hands."