Trinamool takes a ‘communitarian’ approach to check Oppositional politics

The party representatives are seriously talking about development in villages and the state government has tried to support Christmas and New Year celebrations

A massive outreach programme of the Trinamool Congress is underway in West Bengal. Named ‘Didir Suraksha Kawach’ party’s representatives are spanning out to rural pockets to see that benefits of the state government’s 15 welfare schemes are received by the people.

An official party release stated that “thousands of people from different districts of Bengal gathered at 44 gram panchayats across the state” to meet party leaders on Wednesday, who were out to spend a day in various assembly constituencies. This effort – called ‘Anchale Ek Din’ (A day in the region) is part of the programme.

The leaders visited “places of religious significance” to seek blessings before they interacted with local residents. The “Ashirbad Prarthona” in gram panchayats was followed by the meetings and visits to schools and hospitals. The outreach programme, to continue for next two months, will cover 3,343 villages in the state.

While on one hand, the party representatives are seriously talking about development in the villages, on the other, the state government has taken efforts to support Christmas and New Year celebrations. There’s a demand before the Centre to declare Gangasagar Mela as a ‘national fair’. In addition, the municipal corporation in the state capital has been asked to develop one spot along the river Hooghly for Ganga Aarti.

Incidentally, the efforts cut through the Opposition’s campaigns that focus on ‘lack of development’, and politics of ‘appeasement’.

On the national front, Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee has retained a strong secular pitch. “Number-one, our ideology is very clear. We want (a) united India. We want unity. We want unity in diversity…,” Banerjee had stated early in January, when asked what is the party's new vision, as it has already been in politics for twenty-five years.

Political analyst Udayan Bandyopadhyay, however, says that the outreach programme is timed well with the approaching rural polls. “As far as other developments (supporting festivals, aarti) are concerned this is a communitarian approach – the main proponent behind the idea that every community should be treated with equal respect was Bipin Chandra Pal, a nationalist leader. In politics, a communal approach considers the country as a ‘homogeneous entity’. But Pal’s approach represents heterogeneity. I consider this a communitarian approach,” he said.