After a landslide victory in the plains in the municipal polls and making a substantial dent in the Hills, Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee asked party leaders to pull up their socks and build intimate contacts with people before the panchayat polls and entrusted Abhishek Banerjee, the party's MP, to oversee the whole process.
Abhishek was injured in a road accident that took place in October last year. After complete bed rest for a couple of months, he has now resumed political activities. He held three political meetings in North and South 24 Parganas in April which were attended by thousands.
To build intimate contact with the masses, the Trinamool Congress will organise blood donation camps throughout the state and collect 50,000 units along with the police to fight blood shortage during the summer months.
While the Trinamool Congress will collect 30,000 units, the other 20,000 will be collected by the police. This is the first time when a political party has addressed the issue.
The erstwhile Left Front government had once announced that it would set up Bakreswar thermal power plant by collecting blood from people but unfortunately all those camps were held in winter and not in the summer.
Abhishek Banerjee on Sunday held a meeting where block presidents were present and chalked out a plan on how to organise blood donation camps smoothly.
The blood donation camps will be held in the evenings. Banerjee asked his party leaders to organise campaigns in their respective areas and urge people to donate blood. There will be cultural programmes up to the block level as a part of the contact building exercise. More stress will be given on folk music and such functions will be held in the remotest areas of the state.
The main thrust of the political meeting will be on organising workshops and seminars to project communal harmony and peace. It may be mentioned that the theme of this year's birthday celebration of Rabindranath Tagore was "Swadesh". The songs and poems written by Tagore during Swadeshi Movement highlighting Hindu Muslim unity will be used by the Trinamool Congress as a part of the activity.
The party will go all out against the BJP and Abhishek has instructed the leaders to be active on social media including Facebook and Twitter. The leaders have been asked to protest against canards spread by the BJP and resist the hate campaign.
Mamata Banerjee has said over and again that the BJP was posting doctored photographs of Hindus being battered by Muslims on social media. She has given specific instructions to counter such move by BJP.
To project the work done by the panchayats like building of roads, supplying filtered water and taking up health care programmes, the party will publish booklets to make people aware of the projects. Party workers will travel to the villages and inform people about projects like Kanyashree, Khadyasathi and Sabuj Sathi. Brochures containing various steps taken by the state government in the past six years and its achievements during this period will be made available through intense campaigns.
Abhishek Banerjee will be hosting a review meeting every month to take a stock of the situation.