Trinamool Congress launches new mass outreach campaign 'Banglar Gorbo Mamata'

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Kolkata: With an eye on the upcoming municipal polls and the 2021 assembly elections, West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Monday (March 1) launched a mass outreach programme 'Banglar Gorbo Mamata' (Bengal's pride Mamata).

Trinamool Congress sources said the new mass outreach campaign would focus on the developmental work done by the Mamata Banerjee government since 2011.

Banerjee has convened a meeting of the councillors, chairmen, vice-chairmen and senior leaders of the party- controlled municipalities on March 2 at the Netaji Indoor Stadium here to prepare the strategy for the upcoming municipal polls in the state.

The first phase of the programme will be for 75 days.

The elections to 107 municipalities and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), to be held this year, are being dubbed as "mini assembly elections" ahead of the 2021 state polls.

In the last Lok Sabha polls, BJP emerged as a prime challenger of the TMC in Bengal and won almost all the Lok Sabha seats spread across North Bengal and Junglemahal area in South Bengal.

According to TMC sources, the decision was taken following the massive response to the three-phased 'Didi ke Bolo' initiative, which provided a platform to the people to directly report their complaints to Banerjee.

Like the "Didi Ke Bolo" campaign, the new programme is also a brainchild of poll strategist Prashant Kishor and his team I-PAC, according to a TMC leader. 

In July, 2019, Mamata had launched a helpline number and a website as part of the outreach programme on the advice of poll strategist Prashant Kishor, who was appointed by the TMC after its Lok Sabha poll reverses. The outreach programme had received a huge response in its first month with more than 10 lakh people registering their grievances, party sources said.

(With PTI inputs)