Mamata, TMC Bigwigs to Focus on Power-packed 'Panchayat Prachar'; CM to Start Poll Campaign from Coochbehar

The panchayat elections in West Bengal are being seen as a precursor to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, due to which chief minister Mamata Banerjee and TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee have chalked out a power-packed campaign in different parts of the state. On Sunday afternoon, Mamata will reach North Bengal and begin her campaign from Coochbehar following which she will go for meetings to Jalpaiguri among other places.

Abhishek, meanwhile, will start campaigning from June 27 and his first meeting will be in Nadia. Following this, he will go for a meeting to Birbhum on June 30 and reach Alipurduar on July 1, and then onto Malda and Jangal Mahal.

Sources inside the party said there will be five road shows in different parts of the state like Murshidabad, Bankura, Purba Bardhaman, where there will be eight public meetings.

Till July 5, both Mamata and Abhishek will have a series of meetings in several parts of Bengal. Party insiders said this time since only 10 percent seats were won uncontested, the top brass wants to carry out campaigns in all such places.

Sources said the TMC will mostly concentrate on three areas in their campaign — beneficiary programmes like ‘Lakhir Bhandar’ (scheme for women), debunking the violence narrative with data on how the opposition parties have been able to file nominations at a large scale, and how the central government has not disbursed funds for the 100 days work scheme.

Sources said the TMC will focus on how the pre-poll violence was mostly orchestrated by the opposition. The BJP, too, has started its campaign in villages with Sukanta Majumdar, Suvendu Adhikari, and Dilip Ghosh campaigning in different areas.

“Let Mamata campaign, but this time you will see the result,” Ghosh said.

The ministry of home affairs has directed the deployment of more than 300 companies of central forces for the July 8 polls. They have already started arriving n the state. The BJP is now demanding phase-wise elections as such a large deployment of central forces on a single day could pose an issue for the central government.