Bypolls: TMC targets 51% vote share, focuses on dev work & voter outreach

Kolkata: Ahead of the November 13 by-elections in six Assembly seats — Naihati, Haroa, Midnapore, Taldangra, Sitai and Madarihat — the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) has devised a detailed strategy aiming to secure at least 51 per cent of the votes in every booth across all these constituencies.

According to sources, poll campaigns of the TMC leaders will mainly focus on the development works and social schemes carried out by the government in the state.

The ruling party has prepared its election strategy after examining the booth-wise reports submitted by leaders who had handled the party’s electoral battle during the Lok Sabha elections held earlier this year. Trinamool is keen on increasing the party’s vote percentage in those blocks where the party did not perform according to its expectations during the Lok Sabha elections.

During the 2021 Assembly elections, TMC won 5 out of these 6 seats except Madarihat where BJP won. BJP’s Manoj Tigga won from the Madarihat Assembly seat.

Tigga got elected as a Lok Sabha member this year from the Alipurduar Parliamentary Constituency vacating his seat in Madarihat.

As Madarihat is a stronghold for the BJP, the ruling party in Bengal has assigned one leader from each Gram Panchayat area to intensify campaigns in the tea belts. Leaders with better mass acceptance in the locality will be used for the poll campaigns.

In Sitai, Jagadish Chandra Basunia may play a major role in the bypolls even after he was elected an MP on TMC’s ticket from Cooch Behar in the Lok Sabha elections.

As Basunia is popular among the masses, TMC is trying to utilise him in the election campaign in Sitai.

Incidentally, after the Lok Sabha elections, several BJP workers joined TMC in Cooch Behar.

In Midanpore, TMC will focus on the development works carried out in all the booths. TMC leaders will highlight projects like Lakhsmir Bhandar, Kanyashree, Swasthya Sathi etc during their campaigns in all 6 Assembly seats.

The booth leaders have been instructed by the party to visit every household, take suggestions from the people and also highlight the development works.

Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee has already instructed her party leaders to lay stress on public coordination during the Bijoya Sammilani celebrations in the districts.

TMC held Bijoya Sammilani in several places on Thursday, including Birbhum’s Murarai and Nalhati, North 24-Parganas’ Barrackpore and Minakha, West Burdwan’s Raiganj, East Burdwan’s Kalna and Purbasthali South and also in Behala West and Behala East under South Kolkata.

Anubrata Mondal took part in a Bijoya Sammilani programme in Birbhum and sent across a message of a united fight.

He said that if TMC put up a united fight, the party’s leads would increase in the bypolls than what it had secured during the Lok Sabha.

Senior party leader Shashi Panja took part in a Bijoya Sammilani event at ward 132 in Kolkata’s Behala Paschim Assembly Constituency.