Yashwant and Dhankhar, to 2024 plans, TMC may set record straight at Shaheed Diwas today | Political Pulse News,The Indian Express
TMC expects record crowd at rally being held after two years, Mamata drums up excitement with social media post
It is the Trinamool Congress’s (TMC) most important annual event and on Thursday the party will hold the Shaheed Diwas (Martyrs’ Day) rally in the heart of Kolkata after a two-year break because of Covid-19.
The rally is crucial to the TMC because its chairperson and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee uses the platform to set the party’s roadmap for the next 12 months and, over the years, important leaders from other parties have joined it on the Shaheed Diwas stage. The last time the rally was held, in 2019, Banerjee used the stage to lift the morale of TMC workers that had taken a hit following the party’s poor show in the 2019 parliamentary elections.
This time speculation is rife about more defectors from the BJP joining the ruling party at the Shaheed Diwas stage. That will further weaken the Opposition. Mamata Banerjee, party insiders said, was likely to set the tone for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and address the allegation that the party took a step back in the presidential and vice-presidential poll after initially taking the initiative to field Yashwant Sinha as the Opposition’s joint candidate for the presidential election. The Congress and the CPI(M) have accused the TMC of entering into a tacit agreement with the BJP after the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) named former West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar its vice-presidential poll nominee.
As TMC workers from different parts of the state descend on Kolkata, the party is expecting a record crowd to turn up in Dharmatala — the only time it was held in a different place was in 2011 at the Brigade Parade Ground after the TMC came to power by unseating the Left — and the police have mobilised 3,000 of its personnel apart from 1,000 traffic policemen to control the crowd. Many stadiums have been readied to accommodate the visiting TMC workers and on Thursday traffic on almost 10 roads will be diverted, and several schools in the city will remain shut.
TMC general secretary and Diamond Harbour MP Abhishek Banerjee said, “TMC workers have huge sentiment and spontaneity. Already almost one lakh people have reached Kolkata. We think tomorrow’s rally will break all records.”
Rating: 5