india

Updated: Jul 29, 2019 17:40 IST

Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Monday launched a public outreach campaign – ‘Didi Ke Bolo’ (Tell Didi) with the aim to reach out to at least 80% of the 1.6 crore households in West Bengal over the next 20 months ahead of the 2021 legislative assembly elections in the state.

‘Didi’ means elder sister in Bangla and Hindi, but in current political lexicon, it has come to mean chief minister Banerjee who also heads the TMC.

Banerjee had roped in poll strategist and Janata Dal (U) vice president Prashant Kishor in June in the aftermath of the Lok Sabha election results. BJP had won 18 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the states only four less than the TMC’s 22.

According to sources, Kishor’s Indian Political Action Committee (IPAC) has designed the campaign for the election to the 294-member state assembly scheduled to be held in 2021.

“A team has already been setup in Kolkata, IPAC is still in the process of recruitment. Didi Ke Bolo is a unique initiative by Mamata Didi, to provide a platform to every citizen of West Bengal to directly connect with her. Using this platform, people can reach out to her, by simply calling on a number or logging onto the campaign website with their suggestions and problems. Thus, with this platform she is just a call away from every citizen of West Bengal,” an IPAC executive said.

The TMC chief unveiled a party helpline number and website to reach out to the masses and address their grievances in Kolkata on Monday.

The campaign involves two key components; mass information and communication using both traditional and new-age media channels through the centralized number (9137091370) and the digital platform through which can directly reach out to the CM and her office. The other is through a grassroots outreach programme involving elected representatives and key party functionaries to inform the citizens about the platform about how they can use and benefit from it.

“Under this, over the next 100 days, more than a thousand elected representatives and key party functionaries of TMC will personally visit and spend the night in more than 10,000 villages and urban habitations. During these visits, they will spend at least three hours interacting with people in a ‘Jana Sangjog Sabha’ – to understand their problems and make every possible effort to resolve them on their own. For unresolved issues they will also take the responsibility to bring it to the notice of Mamata Didi,” the IPAC executive added.

Similar launch events of the campaign have also been planned across the state by the elected representatives and key party functionaries of the TMC in over 1,000 locations over the next three to five days.