KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has announced that her party Trinamool Congress (TMC) would contest in four other states apart from West Bengal, in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in 2019. The states where TMC will be contesting are Assam, Jharkhand, Orissa and Tripura. She has also distributed responsibility of a few states to senior leaders in her party. Firhad Hakim was assigned with organisational responsibility for Assam and Tripura. Derek o'Brien will look after Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, and Nagaland.
While Arjun Singh and Subhendu Adhikary have been given the responsibility of Bihar, Jharkhand will be looked after by Arup Biswas along with other leaders. Subrata Bakshi and Subhendu Adhikary will look after Orissa. Mamata has directed all leaders to work from grassroots in the states. She will also reportedly be targeting Delhi. Meanwhile, TMC will try to gain public support in Assam as there is 28 per cent Bengali population there. “People should unitedly do the movement in Assam and we will give full support. All Hindus, Muslims, Bengalis should unite in Assam. People who are residing there are from 60 years.”
West Bengal has 42 Lok Sabha constituency and the West Bengal Chief Minister aims to get the maximum number of seats from her homeland. Last week, Banerjee came down heavily on the Centre for allegedly causing delay in clearing a proposal to rename West Bengal to “Bangla”, a proposal unanimously passed by the state assembly in July this year. She also said the delay “clearly shows deprivation to the people of Bengal.” Banerjee slammed the ruling BJP, accusing them of changing the names of historical places and institutions unilaterally for their own political vested interests. She ended her statement asking who should decide the name of the state, if it should be a “political party with zero strength in the state” or the “unanimous resolution passed by the State Assembly in accordance with the Constitutional obligations and federal structure.”
