Darjeeling, 12 March: Trinamul Congress workers today said they are exploring possibilities of
party chief Mamata Banerjee addressing a public meeting in Darjeeling.
They said things are being planned as Miss Banerjee is scheduled to go to Gorubathan under the Kalimpong sub-division to hold a public rally, where she will seek votes for party candidate for the Darjeeling constituency, Baichung Bhutia.
“As the CM will hold a meeting in Gorubathan this month, and owing to the ongoing school examinations and the model code of conduct, we will see if we can organise meeting for her in Darjeeling and also in the plains,” senior party leader and North Bengal Development Minister Gautam Deb said here today.
He was talking to reporters after holding a meeting with the party’s block level committee members at the Darjeeling tourist lodge. Mr Bhutia and all the senior members of the Hills TMC unit attended the meeting.
“We chalked out plans for the upcoming election in the meeting. We will revive our booth level committee and appoint booth polling agents,” Mr Deb said.
He further said a manifesto has been prepared for the polls and that it will soon be sent to the party’s central committee for approval.
“Before she became the chief minister, Mamata Banerjee had raised with the then Prime Minister the issue of including Darjeeling and Cooch Behar under the backward regions list. In the manifesto, we have included a demand for backward region status for the two districts,” he said.
According to him, some other points in the manifesto are Scheduled Tribe status for 10 communities in the Hills, a central university in Darjeeling, a medical college in Kurseong and an engineering college in Kalimpong.
Mr Deb further said sitting Darjeeling MP from BJP, Jaswant Singh, is an “absentee parliamentarian.” He also criticised Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha’s decision to support the BJP candidate this time around too.
“People in the Hills have already seen the performance of the BJP candidate Jaswant Singh as a parliamentarian. He was an absentee parliamentarian,” he said.
In what seemed was a bid to downplay criticism that Mr Bhutia is an outsider in Darjeeling, Mr Deb said
he is also a man of the
Hills.
“The TMC wanted a Hill candidate to represent Darjeeling in the Parliament instead of hiring a candidate from other places. The people in the Hills believe that Baichung is also from this region,” he said. Hinting at the hilly region of Sikkim, he added: “He comes from a place where we share the same route. He was born in the hills.”
Mr Bhutia, meanwhile, said he will be honoured to become the bridge between Sikkim and Darjeeling.(SNS)
They said things are being planned as Miss Banerjee is scheduled to go to Gorubathan under the Kalimpong sub-division to hold a public rally, where she will seek votes for party candidate for the Darjeeling constituency, Baichung Bhutia.
“As the CM will hold a meeting in Gorubathan this month, and owing to the ongoing school examinations and the model code of conduct, we will see if we can organise meeting for her in Darjeeling and also in the plains,” senior party leader and North Bengal Development Minister Gautam Deb said here today.
He was talking to reporters after holding a meeting with the party’s block level committee members at the Darjeeling tourist lodge. Mr Bhutia and all the senior members of the Hills TMC unit attended the meeting.
“We chalked out plans for the upcoming election in the meeting. We will revive our booth level committee and appoint booth polling agents,” Mr Deb said.
He further said a manifesto has been prepared for the polls and that it will soon be sent to the party’s central committee for approval.
“Before she became the chief minister, Mamata Banerjee had raised with the then Prime Minister the issue of including Darjeeling and Cooch Behar under the backward regions list. In the manifesto, we have included a demand for backward region status for the two districts,” he said.
According to him, some other points in the manifesto are Scheduled Tribe status for 10 communities in the Hills, a central university in Darjeeling, a medical college in Kurseong and an engineering college in Kalimpong.
Mr Deb further said sitting Darjeeling MP from BJP, Jaswant Singh, is an “absentee parliamentarian.” He also criticised Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha’s decision to support the BJP candidate this time around too.
“People in the Hills have already seen the performance of the BJP candidate Jaswant Singh as a parliamentarian. He was an absentee parliamentarian,” he said.
In what seemed was a bid to downplay criticism that Mr Bhutia is an outsider in Darjeeling, Mr Deb said
he is also a man of the
Hills.
“The TMC wanted a Hill candidate to represent Darjeeling in the Parliament instead of hiring a candidate from other places. The people in the Hills believe that Baichung is also from this region,” he said. Hinting at the hilly region of Sikkim, he added: “He comes from a place where we share the same route. He was born in the hills.”
Mr Bhutia, meanwhile, said he will be honoured to become the bridge between Sikkim and Darjeeling.(SNS)