TMC's July 21 meeting to highlight demonetisation, GST

Communal harmony and hapless condition of the poor due to demonetisation and GST will be the key issues at the meeting scheduled to be held on July 21 to remember 13 youth Congress supporters who had been gunned down by the police on that day in 1993.

The Trinamool Congress is observing the Martyrs' Day since its inception in 1998. Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee will address the rally.

All district presidents of the party have been instructed to get in touch with local leaders and workers up to the block level to urge people to maintain communal peace and harmony. Also, they have been told to make people aware of the ill effects of demonetisation and GST which have hit the common man badly. The party leaders are promoting blood donation camps to build contact with the people at the ground level as instructed by the Chief Minister.

Abhishek Banerjee, party MP and national president of Trinamool Youth Congress, will be touring the districts to address public meetings on the eve of July 21 programme. At a meeting held in Barrackpore on Saturday, Banerjee urged party workers to build contacts with people and foil the BJP's constant attempts to spread communalism. He said that any attempt to destroy communal harmony in Bengal will be opposed.

Banerjee is playing a key role in holding the Martyrs' Day meet this year. Senior party leaders said as the Panchayat election is scheduled in 2018, Mamata Banerjee might start campaigning for the election from the dais itself on July 21.

The Central government has drastically curtailed financial assistance in several projects meant for rural development in the state. Despite that, the state government has taken up a scheme to construct 18,000 km roads to connect rural Bengal. It was the Chief Minister who had criticised demonetisation wholeheartedly within half-an-hour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement on November 8, 2016. Banerjee took part in protest meetings in different parts in the country including Delhi. In the forthcoming meetings, the Trinamool Congress will highlight how note ban has adversely affected common people, mainly the farmers and how thousands who used to work in other states have lost their jobs.

The leaders felt that this year's meeting is very significant as the BJP is trying to create communal tension in different districts and has been circulating lies on social media. They said that the party chief might instruct workers how to remain active on social media. It may be recalled that in all the administrative review meetings held recently, Mamata Banerjee had urged students from different universities who have been taking part in the programmes to remain active on social media and give befitting replies to the BJP's calculated lies.