‘Lakshmir Bhandar’ to be at forefront of TMC’s door-to-door poll campaigns

Kolkata: In a bid to further solidify its support base, Trinamool Congress (TMC) has decided to keep the state government schemes such as ‘Lakshmir Bhandar’ at the forefront of their door-to-door poll campaigns.

With the polling dates approaching, the party is putting more thrust to its campaigns, especially in constituencies where it feels that it can increase its votes compared to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. To achieve this, the party’s chairperson and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Trinamool’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, have directed party workers that state government schemes which have benefited the people must be highlighted during the poll campaigns.

The Chief Minister, while placing the 2024-25 FY Budget, had announced an increase in allowance for women under the Lakshmir Bhandar scheme. For general categories, it was raised to Rs 1000 from Rs 500 and for SC/ST, it was raised to Rs 1200 from Rs 1000. Sources said that once it comes into effect from April 1, the party, for campaign purposes, will prepare a card which will read that as a New Year’s gift ‘Didi’ (CM) has increased the Lakshmir Bhandar allowance. TMC leader Snehashish Chakraborty is learnt to have told the media that the objective is to reach out to as many people as possible and inform them of the development executed in the state under the leadership of Mamata Banerjee. He said every family has received benefits of the state government schemes irrespective of their political allegiance. Hence, the party is expecting that the votes will double this time compared to the 2019 elections, he said.

Meanwhile, particularly for the Diamond Harbour Parliamentary seat, where Abhishek Banerjee is the candidate, party workers have been asked to highlight the development in this constituency in the last 10 years. Banerjee, while highlighting the “success of Diamond Harbour Model”, said: “In 10 years, Rs 5580 crore work has been done in Diamond Harbour Constituency. I challenge anyone in India to do the same, be it Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Union Home minister Amit Shah. I have published a performance report card every year.”