‘From Cooch Behar to Kakdwip, we are all residents of Bengal’

Cooch Behar/Kolkata: Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Monday congratulated her party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee for starting the new mass outreach campaign “Trinamoole Nabo Jowar” (new wave in Trinamool) which will be kickstarted from Cooch Behar on Tuesday.

Abhishek on the eve of flagging off of the campaign advised the Leader of the Opposition to concentrate on finding candidates for over 60,000 seats for the Panchayat elections. “Else, he will again have to run to the High Court to delay the elections,” he stated, addressing media persons in Cooch Behar. He also dubbed the campaign as one of its kind in the country.

“We are going to the people, conducting a referendum, where the people will decide their candidates for the Panchayat Samiti, Gram Panchayat and Zilla Parishad. Those candidates who are selected by the people will be their Pradhan, Deputy Pradhan and Panchayat members,” stated Banerjee. He reiterated that he wanted free and fair Panchayat polls.

During the campaign, Abhishek is expected to travel nearly 3,500 km and hold more than 250 rallies across the state.

Earlier in the day the TMC supremo tweeted: “Trinamoole Nabo Jowar is a first-of-its-kind political campaign, and I want to heartily congratulate @abhishekaitc & all the party workers for embarking upon #JonoSanjogYatra, which will traverse across the state. We aim to usher in a new wave of progress and development at the grassroots, for which we humbly seek the blessings of the people of Bengal to succeed in this endeavour.”

Thanking the TMC supremo, Abhishek said the party is determined to ensure that welfare initiatives reach all households regardless of caste, creed, or religion.

“Thank you Didi! We are resolute in our determination to ensure that your welfare initiatives reach all households regardless of their caste, creed, religion, or political association. WB has and will continue to serve as a beacon of hope and inspiration for others to emulate,” he tweeted.

“For the next two months, we will traverse several districts of Bengal and culminate our journey at Sagar Islands,” Abhishek told the media persons in Cooch Behar.

“From tomorrow, April 25, we will be kick-starting our campaign from Cooch Behar. The purpose of this campaign is not just to reach out to the masses, but to also enquire and get to know their choice of candidate through a unique public referendum,” Banerjee told the media outside Madan Mohan temple in Cooch Behar where he offered Puja on Monday.

“Before beginning the campaign, I thought it would be wise to take the blessings at Madan Mohan Temple and hence I paid a visit here. I prayed for the success of this campaign and the well-being of the people of Bengal. I selected Cooch Behar as the starting point of the campaign because some Opposition parties do politics in the name of ‘North Bengal’.

He stated: “All these talks of dividing Bengal is a narrative created by the Opposition parties for mere political benefits, AITC condemn these claims. The Opposition BJP is floating these narratives to divide the people, but we will not let it happen.”

He added that he vehemently opposes the usage of ‘North Bengal’.

“For me, every part of the state is Bengal, from Cooch Behar to Kakdwip, we are all residents of West Bengal. Today also, I reiterate the same thing. Be it Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar, Alipurduar, Dinajpur, Siliguri, Darjeeling or Kalimpong, all these places are inseparable regions of Bengal,” he said.

From Cooch Behar, Banerjee departed for Dinhata. On Tuesday he has a meeting in Dinhata followed by three ‘Jan Sabhas’ which he will address. In the evening, he will be attending the ‘adhiveshan camp’.