Trinamool's virtual organisational meeting on Monday to discuss SIR strategies

The Trinamool Congress has convened a virtual organisational meeting on Monday to discuss the party’s strategies regarding the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) by the Election Commission of India (ECI) in West Bengal. 

The meeting will be chaired by Trinamool Congress’ general secretary and the party’s Lok Sabha member Abhishek Banerjee.

All elected party parliamentarians and legislators, members of the state Cabinet, heads of municipal bodies, district presidents, and chairmen of the party as well as the mass organisations affiliated to the Trinamool, have been asked to attend the meeting.

“Besides discussing the party's strategy on the SIT, the performance of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members and legislators as elected public representatives might also be reviewed at the meeting on Monday,” said a member of the West Bengal Cabinet who refused to be named.

He also said that events of infighting within the party reported from some districts might also be discussed at the meeting on Monday, and the party’s general secretary is expected to issue a strong note of caution to those district-level leaders engaged in or encouraging the infighting.

It is learnt that in the meeting, the party’s general secretary is expected to set guidelines for conducting protest movements in districts over the suicide and suicide attempts out of the SIR scare, or events of Booth-Level Officers (BLOs) either dying or falling sick because of the revision exercise workload.

On Thursday, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had written a letter to the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Gyanesh Kumar, asking the latter to keep the revision exercise on hold.

In the letter, she had claimed that the manner in which the exercise had been thrust upon the electoral officials and citizens of the state was “unplanned, chaotic and dangerous”.

On Thursday, the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, also wrote to the CEC countering the letter from the Chief Minister.

In his letter, the LoP claimed that CM Banerjee’s letter to the CEC was a desperate attempt to sabotage the voters’ list purification drive through the SIR, and the contents of her letter were politically motivated and factually incorrect.