KOLKATA: Making the latest change in its plan to stage a protest in Delhi next month, the TMC has decided to take over 2,000 men and women job-card holders under the 100-day employment guarantee scheme to the national capital by a special train to participate in a programme the party plans to organise to press for the Centre’s release of funds due to Bengal.
The sit-in-demonstration led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew and TMC’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee is scheduled to be held on October 2.
Though Mamata had earlier announced that she would be present in the protest event she decided to skip as the doctors prescribed her rest for 10 days because of her old knee injuries.
TMC claims Bengal has central dues amounting to over Rs 1.15 lakh crore, of which around Rs 7,000 crore is on account of the 100-day employment guarantee scheme.
“The party leadership wants to make the protest event a mega show in the national capital and this is why the plan to take the beneficiaries of the rural job scheme as participants was taken. The party’s district-level functionaries have been asked to send as many women job card holders as possible. We are focused on involving the women in the protest programme as the women electorates had played a crucial role in TMC’s thumping victory in the 2021 Assembly elections,” said a senior TMC leader.
TMC’s district leaders were asked to select at least 10 job card holders, including women, from each of the 341 blocks and engage one person as their handlers. “The party finally decided to shortlist over 2,000 job card holders from 3,410 as the venue of the protest is Delhi where police report to Union Home Minister Amit Shah,” said the leader.
Sources in the party said they reserved a train to transport the job-card holders from various districts to Delhi. Besides, TMC MPs, MLAs and senior zilla parishad functionaries will also participate in the protest event.
“The train with over 2,000 people will leave Howrah on September 30 and depart from Delhi on October 3,” said another TMC leader.
While addressing the annual Martyr’s Day rally on July 21 in Kolkata, Mamata had said if the BJP tried keeping the protesters from entering Delhi, she would lead the protest from whichever point her people were stopped and ensure the voice of Bengal’s masses reached the ears of the national leaders in Delhi.