TMC forms a 12-member panel for poll campaign

Kolkata: The ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) has formed a 12-member committee comprising party supremo Mamata Banerjee'’ nephew Abhishek Banerjee and several ministers, to strategise for the Lok Sabha elections, the party’s secretary general Partha Chatterjee said Sunday.

The committee would look into the applications by aspiring candidates to fight the elections and forward those to the party’s supremo Mamata Banerjee, Mr Chatterjee told newspersons here.

The 12-member committee comprises Mamata Banerjee’s nephew and MP Abhishek Banerjee, Subrata Bakshi, Firhad Hakim, Arup Biswas, Suvendu Adhikari, Chandrima Bhattacharya, Sashi Panja, Moloy Ghatak, Jyotipriyo Mallick, Subrata Mukherjee, Derek O’Brien and Partha Chatterjee.

“The committee will look into election-related publicity and screening of applications of aspiring candidates in consultation with party supremo Mamata Banerjee,” Mr Chatterjee said.

While Abhishek Banerjee and O’Brien are Lok Sabha MPs, the other 10 members of the committee are ministers in the state cabinet.

Out of 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal, TMC won 34 seats, the Congress got four and the BJP and CPI(M) won two each in the 2014 general elections.

Taking on the BJP, which has emerged as the principal Opposition party in the state in terms of vote share in the 2018 panchayat elections, Mr Chatterjee said the saffron party indulges in creating divisions among people.

“In the name of Sankalp rally, they tried to go on a rampage in different parts of the state,” he said, referring to clashes between the BJP workers and the police at a few places in the state on Sunday.

The “Vijay Sankalp” bike rally is a part of the BJP’s countrywide pre-poll exercise to establish contact with people.