TMC organisational election on Wednesday, Mamata to be re-elected chairperson

Kolkata, Feb 1: Trinamool Congress will hold its organisational election on Wednesday after a gap of five years and Mamata Banerjee, who is the party's founding chairperson, will be re-elected to the post, party sources said.

After the election Banerjee will spell out the road map of the party regarding its expanding footprint nationally, they said. The TMC organisational poll will be held amid the simmering differences between its generation next leaders and a section of old guards, which forced Banerjee to instruct all its MPs and leaders not to embarrass the party by airing their views and differences in public.

According to party sources, Banerjee had told the TMC parliamentary party meeting, held virtually last week, that she will henceforth look after the party organisation despite her busy schedule. "TMC will hold its organisational polls in Netaji Indoor Stadium in the city tomorrow. We have invited other political parties to come and witness the organisational polls, except the BJP," its secretary general Partha Chatterjee said on Tuesday.

The BJP state unit declined to attach much importance to it and said the party is "least bothered about getting an invitation for TMC's organisational polls". A TMC leader said that after her election as TMC chairperson, Banerjee will be authorised to appoint the other office bearers of the party. The details and modalities of the organisational election, including the issuing of the notification for it, were decided a few days ago.

The list of voters and observers was compiled last week. Born out of the womb of Congress in 1998, the TMC after two unsuccessful attempts in 2001 and 2006, came to power by defeating the 34-year-old Left Front regime in 2011 and riding the crest of massive public outrage against the communists. It stormed to power for the third consecutive term in May last year after bagging 213 out of the 294 seats in the state assembly. PTI