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Abhishek Banerjee to hold roadshow in Tripura as TMC eyes state polls
Several Parliament members and legislators from Bengal will accompany Abhishek to the north-eastern state for the mega rally next week, the party said. At least 43 of 60 seats in the state are in control of the BJP and its allies.
Intensifying its plans to make inroads in Tripura in the 2023 state elections, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Friday announced that its national general secretary, Abhishek Banerjee, will lead the party’s first roadshow in Agartala on September 15.
Several Parliament members and legislators from Bengal will accompany Abhishek to the north-eastern state for the mega rally next week, the party said. At least 43 of 60 seats in the state are in control of the BJP and its allies.
“Abhishek will lead the roadshow in Agartala,” TMC’s state general secretary Kunal Ghosh confirmed.
The Mamata Banerjee-led party has been focusing on expanding the TMC’s footprint to states outside West Bengal after the chief minister’s spectacular victory against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the West Bengal assembly elections this year.
The TMC leader’s plan to visit Tripura also comes amid increasing clashes between workers of the BJP and CPI(M), which ruled the state from 1978 to 1988 and again from 1993 to 2018.
“The BJP has been intentionally attacking CPI(M) workers since last week to divert people’s attention from the rise of the TMC. But the strategy will not work. We are fully sympathetic towards the CPI(M) workers and support their struggle. However, we urge them to vote for us and oust the BJP,” Ghosh said.
However, former Tripura CPI(M) state secretary Baijan Dhan told HT that by asking Left supporters to vote for the TMC, Bengal’s ruling party was making a mockery of the current situation.
“We are not opposed to any party holding rallies in Tripura but TMC leaders should not drag electoral politics into the current situation. They should have sympathy for our workers who are facing attacks every day. This is not the time to talk about elections,” Dhar said.
Taking a swipe at the TMC, Tripura BJP spokesperson Subrata Chakraborty said the former is always welcome to hold rallies as democracy prevails in the state. “Abhishek Banerjee is welcome to hold the roadshow because democracy prevails here. TMC leaders are claiming that it is going to be a historic event. We wonder if it will historically mark the end of TMC’s journey in Tripura like the three earlier occasions when it unsuccessfully contested the state polls. We know that TMC and CPI(M) have an understanding but people have faith in the governance and welfare measures of Biplab Dev,” he said.
The TMC had unsuccessfully contested the polls in 2008, 2013 and 2018. “In 2008, the TMC was literally an unknown force in Tripura,” Chakraborty added.
It is for the third time in two months that Abhishek will be visiting Agartala next week.
During his last visit on August 2, Abhishek had told local leaders that organisational committees will need to be set up right down till the polling booth-level by end of the year.
I-Pac, the company formed by election strategist Prashant Kishor which helped the Mamata government to sweep the April elections in Bengal, has already begun collecting data on the ground to help TMC make inroads into Tripura.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Friday announced that its national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee will lead the party’s first roadshow in Agartala on September 15, months after youth and senior leaders started visiting Tripura and announced that they will oust the Biplab Deb-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the 2023 assembly polls.
Sushmita Dev, former Congress Lok Sabha member from Silchar in Assam, who joined the TMC in August, has been regularly touring the state where her deceased father, former Union minister Santosh Mohan Dev earlier held the Tripura West Lok Sabha seat.
