On Saturday, she held a meeting with party’s MPs and MLAs of North 24 Parganas at Kalighat. There are 5 MPs from the district.
Mamata Banerjee reprimanded Zulfikar Ali Mollah, MLA from Haroa and asked him to stop infighting immediately. “If infighting continues then the poll prospects of our party will be badly hit and we will lose many winning constituencies.”
She also advised the MLAs to build close contact with people and never “misbehave with them.” She further added: “The highhandedness of party leaders will not be tolerated and leaders will have to maintain a good image in the areas from where they have been elected.”
The Chief Minister also urged the MLAs to work for the masses and initiate schemes that benefit the poor and downtrodden. “It is our moral responsibility to look after them,” she said.
The Trinamool chief also cautioned party leaders not to get involved with syndicates. It may be recalled that infighting over the supply of construction materials had reached its height in North 24 Parganas where fights between the followers of Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar, party MP from Barasat and Sabyasachi Dutta, Mayor of Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation have become rampant.
Though both the leaders have denied involvement of their followers with the syndicates, many complaints from local people have reached Mamata Banerjee and she was visibly perturbed over the matter. “Stern action will be taken against those leaders having contacts with syndicates,” she said. She also told the leaders to make people aware of the schemes and projects taken up by the state government in their respective areas.
Ahead of Assembly elections in West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress supremo also exhorted party leaders to increase contact with the masses and reach out to those who are yet to be reached. She is holding weekly meetings with different district leaders of the party ahead of next year’s Assembly election.
After the meeting of party leaders from North 24 Parganas district, which was addressed by her, TMC Secretary General Partha Chatterjee told reporters, “The leaders have been asked to reach out to those section of the masses who are yet to be reached. The party stands united. The leaders have been asked to highlight the development works done by the TMC government in the past four and a half years.”