State leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), including Mukul Roy, on Wednesday attended a one-day special workshop on the upcoming panchayat elections at the Balurghat Nattya Mandir here.

Leaders of North and South Dinajpur and Malda were also present in the workshop that was part of preparations for the upcoming rural polls.

In his maiden visit to South Dinajpur, Mr Roy instructed his party leaders to upgrade their teams at the grassroots level and make way for new leaders.

He also said that his party’s doors are open to whoever wants to join in. He slammed the state government and chief minister Mamata Banerjee for their political strategies and challenged her to win the panchayat elections with a clear majority.

According to a BJP leader, the state leaders clearly instructed the district leaders to upgrade their mass support base and welcome everyone who wants to join the party fold.

“The BJP has categorized the booths and its organization as A, B, and C groups. Each group will try to upgrade itself by increasing the mass support. The state leaders have also decided which district leaders will address the masses in the coming months,” he claimed.

“The BJP will certainly do well in the upcoming panchayat elections. Our grassroots level workers are very confident about a win. We know that the administration will obviously try to dominate our leaders by defaming them. If the administration plays an unbiased role, then the BJP will win with a majority and all the zilla parishads will be won by the BJP in north Bengal,” Mr Roy later told media persons.

Criticizing Miss Banerjee’s visit to the Hills, Mr Roy said that she will be soon known as the “MoU di.” “She is arranging Business Summits every year and is assuring the people new investments. Everything is fake and eyewash. We demand the government make it clear how much money it has spent and what investments it got,” Mr Roy added.

“Mamata Banerjee and her party are dreaming of the prime minister’s post without putting in any effort. The TMC will not be able to submit nominations in other states. How will they fight for the MP election with only 42 seats?,” he added. Criticizing the state of the Trinamul in South Dinajpur, Mr Roy said that the party has become a ‘circus party’ in the district.

“Everybody is a leader here–Subhasis Paul, Bipllab Mitra are all opponents. Sankar Chakrabarty is alone. Arpita Ghosh also has no relations with other leaders of the party. Everybody is busy building their personal image,” he said.

District president of the TMC, Bipllab Mitra, however, said the TMC has a strong base in the district. “He was the second- in-command of our party earlier. He knows which party is the circus party. We have a strong party organization in South Dinajpur and we will prove it,” Mr Mitra said.

Meanwhile, on his first visit to Malda after joining the BJP, Mr Roy enlisted almost 500 youths in the party fold and lifted the hunger strike of primary school job seekers at the administrative building in the town.

However, no top BJP leader of the district was seen with Mr Roy in Malda on Wednesday. He slammed TMC leaders in Malda like Krishnendu Narayan Choudhury, Sabitri Mitra and Moazzem Hossain, the TMC district president, for the “big rifts” among them.

Mr Choudhury, the former state minister, however, said, “He damages the party in which he stays. TMC produced horrible results in the district in 2015 only for him and his tactics. Mamatadi is quite sympathetic with the jobseeking youths and she will definitely do something for them.”