All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) chairperson and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today kick-started her party campaign for the 2023 Meghalaya Assembly elections by promising a monthly financial assistance for women in the State when her party comes to power.
Addressing a party workers convention at the Soso Tham Auditorium here, Banerjee announced a financial inclusion scheme under which a direct transfer of Rs 1,000 per month will be made to a woman in every household of Meghalaya.
“Women in Meghalaya have suffered enough. While the State government neglects them, we aim to empower them,” she said.
During her interaction with party workers, Banerjee highlighted the works taken up by her party in West Bengal such as social security programmes and schemes which are not implemented in other parts of the country.
She highlighted that if Trinamool Congress forms the government in Meghalaya, such schemes and programmes can be implemented which will benefit women and provide employment opportunities to local youth.
Banerjee also scoffed at propaganda spread by political opponents that Trinamool Congress is a “Bengali party”.
“There is a rumour that Trinamool is a Bengali party. If TMC is a Bengali party, then why do you play the national anthem written by Rabindranath Tagore? It is for all of India. Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose gave the slogan of Jai hind. Do you call him Bengali? Do you call Nobel laureate Mother Teresa a Bengali?” she asked.
Banerjee also said her party would ensure that Meghalaya is ruled by the sons of the soil. She also said that Meghalaya should not be remote-controlled from Delhi or Guwahati or Kolkata.
“In Meghalaya our advantage as a party is that we have so many leaders,” Banerjee said while referring to State Trinamool Congress president Charles Pyngrope and former chief minister Dr. Mukul Sangma.
AITC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee in his speech said that Meghalaya is waiting on the cusp of change.
“When 2023 elections come and results are out you will see a new democratic progressive government,” he said.
He added that Trinamool Congress would ensure that Meghalaya retains its lost glory and not as a safe haven for corruption as it is today.
Terming the double engine strategy of BJP as a hoax, Abhishek also said that Trinamool Congress is the only party that has been taking the BJP head on.
Former Meghalaya chief minister and current leader of opposition Dr. Mukul Sangma in his speech said that the people of Meghalaya have been systematically deprived of development by the present MDA government.
