Newspaper readers in and around Siliguri today woke up to thousands of leaflets on the Trinamul Congress’ (TMC) new slogan ‘Bangla Nijer Meyekei Chaay’ (Bengal wants its own daughter) as they reached their doorsteps with their favourite dailies.

The move to distribute the leaflets is part of the outreach campaign initiated by election strategist Prashant Kishor’s (PK) Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) that is preparing TMC’s Assembly poll plans, sources said.

The ‘PK’ team is learnt to have met people associated with the delivery of newspapers around two weeks ago and made the plan to distribute the leaflets today.

Sources said around 40,000- 50,000 of the colourful leaflets were distributed through newspapers today. The leaflet has Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s photo on it, along with sweets on one plate, colours, and flowers on another in what is being seen as an effort to highlight the rich culture of the state. The rear portion of the leaflet contains this year’s calendar and list of holidays.

Darjeeling district Trinamul Congress leadership, however, said it was not aware of the distribution plans. Sources said the leaflets were mainly distributed in the Siliguri and Dabgram-Fulbari Assembly constituencies today.

“Around 1 lakh newspapers are delivered daily in households in the Siliguri and Dabgram-Fulbari area. Around 40,000- 50,000 leaflets were distributed this morning,” the sources said.

“It is a form of campaign of the Trinamul Congress for the Assembly elections. The party has launched a new slogan ‘Bangla Nijer Meyekei Chaay’ extensively in the state, projecting Miss Banerjee as the chief minister for the third time. After launching the outreach programme–Didi Ke Bolo–following the Lok Sabha election debacle in 2019, a similar campaign with the photo of Miss Banerjee against the background of the iconic Howrah Bridge was taken up through leaflets that were distributed with newspapers in August in that year. Despite the popularity of digital media, most people still read newspapers. The PK team touched upon that chord,” said a political analyst.

Ranjan Sarkar, the president of the Darjeeling district TMC unit, said: “The district party leadership here was not aware of this campaign. But this is the slogan in the upcoming Assembly elections, that it is the daughter of Bengal who will lead the fight to protect our state and its culture.