Posters of West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee with ‘Sarbadhinayika (One and All)’ written on them were spotted in several pockets of south Kolkata like Jadavpur and Baghajatin on Saturday morning.
These posters surfaced a day after a large number of posters and yellow flags bearing the message ‘Odhinayak Abhishek (Captain Abhishek)’ were found in Kolkata.
Interestingly, the posters of Mamata Banerjee were found right next to posters of her nephew and fellow TMC leader Abhishek Banerjee. The chief minister’s posters have been put up by FAM (Fearless AITC Members) – one of the social media cells of the TMC.
Reacting to the development, BJP MP Shamik Bhattacharya told The Indian Express, “These (poster campaigns) are pre-planned and are being done to divert the attention of the common man from their regular troubles… We are not really worried about who is their ‘captain’ and who is the ‘one and all’. They are not heroes in the eyes of the people, they are villains and nothing else.”
CPI(M) leader Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya said, “They (TMC) have a lot of unaccounted money which they have got from the scams and electoral bonds and they can go on pasting and putting up posters… This is just a waste of funds and… well planned, they want to project that though there have been failures they have a new leader to save them from all the failures.”
Meanwhile, TMC MP Sougata Roy said, “Mamata Banerjee has said that she will look after the entire party and there is no doubt that she is the party supremo. She has given the responsibility to some others only for seven days, so it does not make any difference.”
On Thursday, Mamata Banerjee had announced a five-member task force to manage the affairs of the state during her London visit. The task force comprises Home Secretary Nandini Chakraborty, Additional Chief Secretaries Vivek Kumar and Prabhat Mishra, Director General of Police Rajeev Kumar, and Kolkata Police Commissioner Manoj Verma.
A group of senior ministers consisting of Chandrima Bhattacharya, Shashi Panja, Sujit Bose, Aroop Biswas, and Firhad Hakim will coordinate with the bureaucrats to ensure the smooth running of the government, Mamata Banerjee had said.
She also announced that the party affairs would be looked after by Subrata Bakshi and Abhishek Banerjee in her absence.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is set to leave for London on Saturday evening. She will attend a meeting at the India High Commission in London on March 24. On March 25, there will be a meeting regarding the follow-up of investment proposals received at the Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS) held last month. On March 27, Mamata Banerjee will deliver a lecture at Oxford University. She will return to Kolkata tentatively on March 29.