TMC’s Abhishek Sets Target of Winning All Panchayat Seats in Birbhum

Senior TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee on Wednesday set a target of winning all panchayat seats in Birbhum district as a reply to the “vendetta politics” of the BJP over withholding funds due to the state under the MGNREGA scheme.

The Trinamool Congress presently controls all the Zilla Parishad and most of the gram panchayats in the state.

Banerjee’s remark drew sharp reactions from the BJP which said the people of Birbhum will reject the “TMC’s politics of terror and vendetta”.

“They (BJP) had started the campaign for Lok Sabha elections with much fanfare in Birbhum. But what happened? They lost both Lok Sabha seats in Birbhum. We scored 10 out of 11 goals (winning 10 out of the 11 assembly seats) in 2021. We lost one then, but in the coming elections, we have to ensure we win panchayats in all the 11 seats,” Banerjee said.

The TMC national general secretary, considered number 2 in the party, was addressing a rally as part of the ‘Trinamool-eh Nabajowar’ (new wave in Trinamool) mass outreach campaign at Mohammad Bazar in the district.

Banerjee said the victory in Birbhum will not only be a reply to the “stepmotherly approach” meted out by the BJP towards West Bengal but also send a message that no amount of intimidation by the CBI-ED can stop the fight for people’s rights.

“We have to show these outsiders yet again what the people of Bengal are capable of. We had shown them in 2021. They have put Anubrata Mondal in jail. They can do that with whomever they want. But they have to release the funds that belong to our people. No ED-CBI intimidation will stop our fight for the people,” he said.

Anubrata Mondal, the TMC’s Birbhum district president, was initially arrested by the CBI in August last year in connection with the cattle smuggling case. The ED later arrested him after questioning him in a jail in the state. His daughter was arrested recently. Both are now lodged in Delhi’s Tihar jail.

“People have to teach the BJP a lesson by ensuring that we retain the Bolpur and Birbhum Lok Sabha seats in the 2024 elections by over 2 lakh votes. They should be taught a lesson for doing politics of revenge with the people of Bengal,” he said.

Reacting to Banerjee’s remark, BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said the people of Birbhum will give a befitting reply to TMC’s “terror tactics” that Mondal perpetrated on behalf of the party.

“The kind of terror that TMC and its leader Anubrata Mondal had unleashed in Birbhum in the last 12 years is known to everyone. The people of Birbhum this time would give a befitting reply to it,” he said.

Abhishek’s comment about winning all panchayat seats in a district contrasts what he has advocated in the past few months. He has urged party workers to refrain from using strong-arm tactics to win elections and shun the grab-all mindset.

His remarks then stemmed from criticism that the party had drawn from various quarters during the 2018 panchayat polls, which were marred by widespread violence, and alleged rigging incidents.

The following year, TMC’s tally in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls came down from 34 to 22, and the opposition BJP’s tally went up from two to 18 in the state.

With the majority of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal having rural and semi-urban areas administered by panchayats, absolute control of the rural bodies is a must for political parties to have the upper hand on rivals in the Lok Sabha polls in 2024.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)