Trinamul Congress leaders and workers are anxiously waiting to listen to the party’s chairperson Mamata Banerjee tomorrow, 1 January when the party will be celebrating its foundation day. Miss Banerjee set up Trinamul Congress on 1 January 1998 after she realised that Congress would never organise any movement to dislodge the CPI-M from power in Bengal.

A senior party leader said the party flag would be hoisted at the main office and all the offices in the districts up to the block level. There will be blood donation camps organised by the party in different areas across the state. He said the party rank and file were waiting to get a message from Miss Banerjee. He said as the Lok Sabha election is drawing near, the party is gearing up for it. It was learnt that the full bench of the Election Commission of India would come to Kolkata in January.

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In March they are likely to announce the date of the election . While addressing the party leaders in North 24-Parganas recently, Miss Banerjee had asked them to bury the hatchet and work together to ensure victory of the candidates in 2024 elections. She has said over and over again to build contacts with the people coming from all walks of life. The party will launch an intensive campaign from January.

More than 10 days have lapsed since Miss Banerjee along with other party MPs met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delh seeking his intervention to clear the long standing dues of the state. Though Mr Modi had given assurance, nothing has been done so far. Trinamul Congress will highlight how the Centre had deliberately deprived the state of its dues.

Those who had worked for 100 days under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act ( MGNREGA) scheme have not received their dues. The funds meant for construction of houses for the poor have been withheld. Miss Banerjee has always wanted that youths should join politics and on 2 January she will address the youths at Netaji Indoor Stadium.

She is likely to give a road map which they should follow and inform people about various schemes that the state government has taken for the welfare of the masses. Just before the foundation day of Trinamul Congress some people with vested interests circulated a rumour that Mr Abhishek Banerjee, party’s national general secretary had told people close to him that he would campaign only in Diamond Harbour, which is his Lok Sabha constituency, during the polls.

Party leaders said the report was baseless and circulated just to create confusion amongst the public before the party’s foundation day