Chief minister Miss Mamata Banerjee will virtually address a public meeting for the three-tier panchayat elections at Dubrajpur in Birbhum. The panchayat polls will be held after five days and for the first time since coming to power the TMC is contesting a election without its strongman Anubrata Mondal, who is at present lodged in Tihar Jail in Delhi. Mondal was arrested by the CBI almost a year ago from his house in Nichupatti in Bolpur in connection with the cross border cattle smuggling case. In his absence, chief minister Miss Mamata Banerjee who is also the Trinamul chairperson has announced that she will look after the party in Birbhum district during her last visit here.

She has formed a core committee for running the organisation in Mondal’s absence. After she suffered an injury after her helicopter made an emergency landing while returning from North Bengal, Miss Banerjee is unable to visit Birbhum to address her party workers physically but tomorrow she will try to send a strong message to the TMC workers barely few days before the panchayat polls to boost their morale, sources said.

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The party observer of Birbhum district and state minister Firhad Hakim will be physically present at the meeting in Dubrajpur tomorrow where the CM will address the meeting virtually. In the absence of heavyweight Anubrata Mondal, retaining all the seats in Birbhum district will be a challenge to the Trinamul Congress in the panchayat polls. In the 2018 panchayat elections, TMC has won most of the seats uncontested from Birbhum district. But the BJP has managed to win a seat in the 2021 assembly polls in Birbhum district. This time the Opposition parties have been able to file nomination papers in the absence of Anubrata Mondal.