Abhishek Banerjee Mobilizes Support for Trinamul in Cooch Behar Ahead of Lok Sabha Elections

Abhishek Banerjee, the national general secretary of Trinamul, campaigned for his party's candidate in Cooch Behar on Saturday while meeting with leaders of local communities in Siliguri.

Abhishek met with representatives of the Jai Birsa Munda Ulgulan, the All Bodo (Mech) Samaj, and the Kamta Rajbanshi Parishad in Siliguri. He made a commitment to consider their requests after the general election.

These organizations' representatives vowed to support Trinamul in the Lok Sabha seats for Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, and Cooch Behar. They had supported the BJP in 2019.

The president of Kamta Rajbanshi Parishad, Rahul Barman, said that the organization has been a longtime supporter of the BJP. "The BJP offered us no assistance. Numerous programs and initiatives were launched by the state government for the Rajbanshi population. We'll back Trinamul, he said.

The conference was organized by Anit Thapa of the Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha, a party ally in the hills supporting Mamata Banerjee.

The Bodo (Mech) community, which has around 1.5 lakh electors in the districts of Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, and Alipurduar, was represented by Dila Shaibo, who said that since 2009, the group has supported the BJP.

Our problems were never discussed in Parliament by the BJP MPs. We met with Abhishek Banerjee today (Saturday) and reaffirmed our support for Trinamul, added Shaibo.

He said that the community's demands include a development board, a Bodo department at North Bengal University, and affiliation for 138 elementary schools that use Mech as the major language of teaching.

At the meeting was Kishor Kujur, the chairman of Jai Birsa Munda Ulgulan, a group that represents the tribal people in six Assembly segments, who make up around 60% of the population.

"We will no longer support the BJP. Although the Trinamul administration started charity programs for tribal people in tea plantations and forest areas, we voted for the BJP," Kujur said.

Roadshow

Subsequently, Abhishek visited Sitai, the Cooch Behar Assembly seat that Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia of Trinamul had won in the 2021 Assembly elections. He participated on a roadshow with Udayan Guha, the north minister. In these Lok Sabha elections, Basunia is up against Nisith Pramanik of the BJP. According to Abhishek, Pramanik had to get bail since he was the subject of an arrest warrant. "You have one candidate like that, and then there is our guy. That's up to you," Abhishek added.