Abhishek: Remove ‘zamindars’ from Centre to save Bengal

Kolkata: Trinamool Congress (TMC) national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, on Friday, instructed his party leaders to begin preparations for the distribution of MGNREGA funds to job card holders in Bengal from March 1, while remarking why the Opposition parties are not sending any delegation to Chopra following the death of four children during an excavation work by the Border Security Force (BSF).

Abhishek said this will be an election to oust the BJP from power at the Centre. Referring to the BJP, he said the poll campaign will revolve around removing “zamindars” from the Union government and saving Bengal.

With the Centre continuing to withhold funds for the state, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee promised on Thursday that she will start distributing the money to MGNREGA job card holders of the state from March 1.

Abhishek held a virtual meeting with party leaders and workers and is learnt to have instructed them to set up support camps ahead of the distribution from February 18 to February 25. The camps will be open from 10 am to 6 pm. He is learnt to have instructed the leaders that a list of the party’s SC/ST workers from every Assembly segment be sent to him by February 21. Ten names from the SC community and five from the ST category need to be sent. He also instructed that names be sent of party workers who are renowned in their localities for social work.

Further, announcing that elections may be announced in the beginning of March, Abhishek is also learnt to have asked his party workers to conduct booth-level meetings on March 1 and March 2. He has advised that meetings be held at local tea shops under the “Chai Pe Charcha” initiative. In these meetings, issues need to be highlighted such as Centre’s deprivation of Bengal.

Abhishek said this will be an election to oust the BJP from power at the Centre. Referring to the BJP, he said the poll campaign will revolve around removing “zamindars” from the Union government.

Banerjee questioned why the Opposition parties are not sending delegations to Chopra following the tragic death of four children who got buried alive but only sending delegations to Sandeshkhali.

He also questioned how can the Lok Sabha Privileges Committee summon chief secretary B P Gopalika, DGP Rajeev Kumar and other officials on the basis of a complaint from the BJP even when it is apparent that the Bengal BJP president Sukanta Majumder slipped and fell from the vehicle he climbed atop.