Abhishek Banerjee directs TMC MPs, MLAs to activate election war rooms immediately

Kolkata: TMC national general secretary leader Abhishek Banerjee on Saturday directed party MPs and MLAs to activate the election war room in their respective constituencies immediately and send regular updates to the party leadership from January 27, a senior leader said.

Addressing a closed-door virtual meeting with party leaders, Banerjee also called for the immediate constitution of a "booth raksha committee" in every booth to thwart BJP’s alleged attempts to delete genuine voters through the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and "logical discrepancies".

He said a TMC delegation will visit Election Commission soon in protest against attempts to disenfranchise voters through "logical discrepancies".

"In addition, block and town-wise dhikkar/protibad sabha (protest/condemnation) against SIR will be held on January 25 on the occasion of National Voters’ Day," Banerjee said.

Banerjee claimed that district election officers were being asked by micro-observers to give their login credentials and said the party would take up the issue legally.

Expressing dissatisfaction that "despite earlier instructions many war rooms are yet to become functional in the party," Banerjee said, "many MPs and MLAs are not active in this battle and this cannot go on. Those who will not be actively on the side of the party will not get the backing of the party. We need their participation in party programmes."

Banerjee said apart from attending sessions in Lok Sabha and assembly sessions, the representatives must devote time to fight the agenda of BJP.

"Only 22 days remain for the SIR to be over. We should be more active. Why so many war rooms still remain inactive? If necessary, people's representatives must spend from their pockets to keep the war room functioning in a proper manner," the senior leader quoted Banerjee as saying.

Banerjee said the war room report by the MLA//MP must be sent from to the party brass from January 27 to February 15.

"Only three months are left for the Assembly polls. We had foiled one conspiracy of BJP to delete genuine names by the name of logical discrepancies. They had won previous elections in Maharashtra and Bihar by unscrupulous method deleting names. We won't allow them to repeat the same exercise in Bengal," he said.

Banerjee also asked the party’s women’s wing to propagate and show a 58-minute documentary titled ‘Lokkhi Elo Ghore’ (Lokkhi has come to the household) in every ward as part of the ‘Parar Sanklap’ campaign, highlighting key schemes of the state government and informing people about its work.