TMC aims turn around of fate in Purulia in upcoming elections
Kolkata: With an apparent dismal performance in the Jangalmahal district of Purulia during the last Assembly elections, the Trinamool Congress is hoping to turn around its fate here in the upcoming Panchayat and Parliamentary elections through its Naba-jowar campaign.
The initiative, which has so far covered about 11 districts, has now entered Purulia making it the 12th. The TMC is seeking to regain its lost ground here. Addressing the booth presidents, TMC’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee chose to remind them that the party could only win three out of nine Assembly constituencies in the Purulia district and lost in five where the votes went to the BJP.
Abhishek highlighted that Purulia has about 170 Gram Panchayats and if the results of the 2021 Assembly elections are to be taken into account then it is apparent that the party lost in about 77 of them and won in 93. “No one can say that they have stopped receiving the welfare schemes of the state government in the Panchayats where TMC lost. If anyone can come up and say that they were deprived of the schemes then I will never step into Purulia again. The state government is doing its work in all the Panchayats, regardless of the election results. Under the schemes such as Rastasree or Pathasree, road development and repair works have been undertaken in every rural area in the district,” he claimed.
He sought to remind that despite the people of Purulia voting for the BJP in the 2021 state elections, the saffron brigade has allegedly turned a blind eye to their problems which include clearance of funds for wages of 100-day rural work and homes under the Awas Yojana. “About 80,000 families in the district were deprived of the wages for 100-day work for the last two years,” he alleged, and pointed out that there are about 12 lakh job card holders in Purulia.
Abhishek instructed the booth presidents to inform the people in the district of the same and convince them to vote for their rights instead of repeating the 2021 voting pattern where religion allegedly became the basis for votes. He alleged that not a single Central BJP minister visited Purulia to hold discussions on development.
With the people from the Kurmi community recently conveying their demands to Abhishek, he asked booth presidents to explain to the community that it was only the TMC-led state government in West Bengal that had passed a resolution for granting them the Scheduled Tribe status but it is the BJP-led Centre, whom they voted for, that has deprived them so far in fulfilling their demands.
Pointing out to the booth presidents that Kurmis form about 30 per cent of the job card holders in this district, he asked them to convince the community to also fight for their rights such as pending wages, and join him in the mass protest in Delhi which the party is planning to organise in the days to come.
