Trinamul Congress national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee today held a virtual meet with party leaders, including spokespersons, frontal heads, district presidents, councillors, BLAs and chairpersons of various civic bodies. Abhishek was also joined by the party leader Subrata Bakshi for the videoconference.
The message was clear from the national general secretary of TMC that everyone has to work hard in the coming days, leading up to the Assembly polls, said party sources.
There would be block-wise rally across the state tomorrow on National Voters Day.
It was also decided that a Trinamul delegation would visit the CEO office in Kolkata of the ECI tomorrow.
Subrata Bakshi praised Abhishek for taking up the issue of ‘logical discrepancies’ in a manner that even the SC in its judgement had to agree to the issues raised by the party, said sources.
Addressing the party leaders, Abhishek said that due to unplanned SIR, 126 people have died till now.
“We fought legally against SIR. Our 10-member delegation, including myself, went to Delhi to meet full bench of ECI. The CEC, Gyanesh Kumar was present but they didn’t give proper answer to our queries. There were 1.36 cr cases of logical discrepancy. Those who brought laurels for country and Bengal like Amartya Sen, Md Shami, Netaji’s kin were not spared and included in the list,” said Abhishek.
He said that it is unfortunate that the ECI didn’t allow TMC BLA2 in the hearing process. We resisted and said BLA2s will be there. On this we had lot of arguments with the ECI. All other parties accepted WhatsApp diktat of the ECI but we didn’t, Abhishek is supposed to have said.
Abhishek also said that only in Bengal micro-observers were deployed, which is why the TMC brands BJP “Bangla-Birodhi”
“In November, I told you the fight is of six months. Three months passed, we have three more months to go, around 100 days. For SIR, we have 22-odd days to go and we have to use our full might in these days,” Abhishek said through videoconferencing.
After the final list is published, in 10 days’ time the hearing process needs to be completed. “When the list is published, all BLA2 and booth presidents will form a ‘vote raksha committee’, booth-wise. I saw many war rooms not functional. If you are given any responsibility and you think we won’t work, whether MLA or MP, among others, if you don’t do your duty, the party won’t stand by you,” he said. Addressing the MPs, he said they may go for a day or two for the Parliament sessions and spend rest of the time in your constituency.
Issuing a stern message he said: “There is no place for complacency and overconfidence. Those who believe in “dhire cholo”, I want to tell them wake up from your dreams. The ECI would do same thing here what they did in Delhi and Haryana. We caught them in connection with Form 7, in many places bulk Form 7s were caught which BJP wanted to delete the names of people who vote for TMC. We were alert so we caught. In Bankura, our workers caught them and resisted in multiple places. This is criminal offence and invites a jail for 7 years. You can’t give more than 10 forms but BJP people are carrying forms in bulk. If our war rooms are not functional, BJP will continue this full-fledged. Because the party wanted, you are MLA or MP. Those who are MPs, you need be you spend your money on the constituency. For people you have to fight. Unlike other parties, we don’t ask you to give 50 per cent to party funds.”
Abhishek also asked women’s wing the party to propagate and show people in every ward as part of parar Sanglap (58-min documentary) and highlight key schemes of govt. “Inform people about work state govt is doing. In coming days, Didi will again allot houses to people, make people aware of the same,” Abhishek said, according to party insiders.
He said that the state govt is “Atmanirbhar Bangla”. Despite Delhi halting funds, we have managed to serve the people, he said, adding, all states lost the SIR battle but only we manage to catch them and defeat them.
Abhishek also said: “The DEOs (District Election Officers) are asked by micro-observers to give their login credentials. They are giving this diktat via VC. We will take it up legally.”