Hummingbird News Desk
KOLKATA, 2 MARCH: Trinamul Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee constituted a 12-member Election Committee and its first meeting was held today at her Kalighat’s party office .
It is learnt that apart from all 12 members, poll strategist Prashant Kishor was also present in the meeting.
Members of the committee comprises of Mamata Banerjee, MPs Abhishek Banerjee, Sudip Bandopadhyay, Saugata Roy , DerekOBrien, Chaudhury Mohan Jatua,party’s secretary general Partha Chatterjee, party’s state president Subrata Bakshi, ministers Subrata Mukherjee, Firad Hakim, Aroop Biswas and Chandrima Bhattacharya.
After the meeting, Mr Roy told the media that there was a threadbare discussions on all 294 candidates and the list is ready.
The meeting also discussed on election modalities and which leaders should campaign in 30 Assembly constituencies going to poll on 27 March. The committee also discussed about election manifesto to which will definitely highlight the public beneficiary projects like Swastha Sathi which so far has benefitted more than 86 lakh people, Khadhya Sathi where more than 20 lakh people have enrolled themselves.
The final decision on the candidate list will be taken by party supremo and party sources reveal that candidates above 80 years will not get a ticket to contest this Assembly poll. More young party workers are likely to get nominations this year.
Asked whether the list will be declared today, Mr Roy said, “It’s more unlikely.”
Party sources said, unlike the previous years, when after the deceleration of poll, Mamata Banerjee hurriedly declares her candidates’ list and manifesto, the poll strategist Prashant Kishor has reportedly advised her not to declare all 294 candidates at one go. It.is learnt that list of candidates will be declared in.phases. The first date for filing nomination is 2 March for constituencies going to poll on 27 March.
When pointed out to Saugata Roy get the first date of nomination starts from only tomorrow, he said, “the party is well aware of the dates and that the election will be held in eight phases. We will declare the candidate list in due time.”
Meanwhile, Akhilesh Yadav, SP chief has extended his full support to Mamata Banerjee through a Press Conference held in Lucknow. He also sent a letter to party’s state president Subrata Bakshi extending his party’s help to Trinamul Congress. He also appealed to all the UP people living in Kolkata and West Bengal to vote for Trinamul Congress.
He also sounded a word of caution to Mamata Banerjee asking her to be careful about the presence of booth workers in polling booths as the BJP workers and Central Forces will try to oust them from the booths as they have done in last UP Assembly poll
Earlier, Mamata Banerjee during her booth workers’ meeting said that she had information that BJP will offer money to Trinamul Congress booth workers a day before election and will ask them not to present at the booths
She requested them not to accept such offer but to man the booths with all seriousness.
Later, at Nabanna, she met Tejaswai Yadav, RJD leader who extended all his support to Mamata Banerjee and asked the populace of Bihar living in West Bengal to vote for Mamata Banerjee.
