Kolkata: Keeping in view the upcoming Parliamentary polls in 2024, Trinamool Congress (TMC) has decided to pay special attention to border areas in the Murshidabad district where the people are supposedly in need of both “social and financial security”.
Ahead of the Panchayat elections this year, TMC has been carrying out its Trinamool-e Nabajowar campaign led by the party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee. Sources said the need for such a campaign arose since the party realised there was more room for development in certain Panchayat areas.
Banerjee is presently campaigning in Murshidabad, a district which the party has put on its priority list, especially after the bypoll setback. This is also a district where the party’s chairperson Mamata Banerjee had requested the voters before the 2021 Assembly elections to trust in TMC for once and vote in its favour.
The district remained a bastion of the Congress for years. However, poll results turned the table in favour of TMC which wrested power from the Congress in the district.
However, Murshidabad soon jumped into the limelight for all the wrong reasons. Being close to the border with Bangladesh, it was in the news in relation to cattle smuggling in the state which has now led to the imprisonment of the party’s leader Anubrata Mondal. Political observers said its impact was apparent on the Sagardighi bypolls where the party suffered a setback, losing the seat to Congress.
Trinamool has maintained that it is the BSF that guards the border and allegedly commits atrocities against the villagers in border areas. In the wake of such a situation, during a meeting in Behrampore camp, Murshidabad, with the party workers, Abhishek highlighted that the border areas in the district need both social and financial security.
He pointed out that certain problems exist in these areas which came to his attention after interacting with the people here. Abhishek promised that in the days to come, priority will be given to the development of the border areas in Murshidabad.
He said be it the Lok Sabha or Vidhan Sabha elections, Murshidabad has remained a witness to the paradigm shift in the verdicts of the people.