Mamata's unique mass outreach scheme
Kolkata: Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Monday launched a first-of-its-kind unique public outreach campaign titled 'Didi Ke Bolo' (Tell Didi) with the target to reach around 1.6 crore families, which is 80 percent of the total households in Bengal in the coming 20 months ahead of the 2021 state Assembly elections.
This is the second of the major public outreach programmes initiated by her followed by the "Jan Sanjog Yatra," which she announced during the Martyrs' Day Rally at Esplanade on July 21.
As part of the programme, TMC representatives will reach out to the families, have dinner at the booth-level party workers' houses and spend the night in villages. During the level-playing interaction, they will give a phone number: 9137091370 that will enable people to put across their views, grievances, if any, directly to Didi. People can also get straight access to the Chief Minister digitally through www.didikebolo.com. Using this platform, people can reach out to her by simply calling on a number or logging onto the campaign website with their suggestions and problems.
The campaign will commence with more than a thousand elected representatives and party functionaries who will personally visit 10,000 villages and urban habitations over the next 100 days, meet people and listen to their problems. "The objective of the initiative is to improve citizen's participation and engagement by providing a platform to every individual to share their views or problems and suggestions for expedited action," Banerjee said.
The brochure that was released by her on Saturday in a press conference lists a stepwise do's for the party representatives. Trinamool leaders, after reaching a village or town assigned to them by the party headquarters, are required to hold a meeting of the booth-level party workers. They should try to meet three to five prominent personalities of the area and seek their views. The party leaders should then hold an interactive session with the local party workers and booth-level members and stay overnight at the house of one of the party members. The next day they should conduct door-to-door visits of the neighbouring households. Before leaving the area, they should hoist the Trinamool flag there.
Banerjee addressed the media conference all by herself and held a meeting with the MLAs and senior party leaders in the district level at Nazrul Manch, asking them to popularise the phone number in the best possible manner. All the MLAs present in the meeting were given bags, small batches, T-shirts and visiting cards to make the new initiative popular that Banerjee termed as the 'modernization' of TMC.
It may be mentioned that Banerjee had roped in poll strategist and Janata Dal (U) vice-president Prashant Kishor in June. According to party sources, Kishor's Indian Political Action Committee (IPAC) has designed the campaign for the election to the 294-member state Assembly scheduled to be held in 2021. Representatives from the IPAC were also present during Banerjee's press conference.
The initiative will be followed by similar launch events across the state by elected representatives and key functionaries of the party in over 1,000 locations over the next three to five days.
