By IANS,
Lucknow : Hoping to expand its base in the Hindi heartland of Uttar Pradesh and make an electoral dent, the Trinamool Congress will set up district units across the state, party leaders said here.
Party supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who last week gave the go-ahead for the expansion plan, has appointed Shyam Sunder Sharma as the party’s state president in a bid to establish an organisational set-up. Sharma had won the Mant assembly by-election, defeating the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate.
He has been directed to expand the party’s support base and form district units. “To strengthen the party, a meeting of party workers has been called on Aug 23 and we would be brainstorming on ways to make our presence felt in the state,” Sharma told IANS.
District units and district working committees would be established after the meeting, a senior leader said, adding that the Trinamool wanted to be seen “as a party fighting for the rights of the labour class, farmers and the downtrodden”.
“With the work so far done in the regime of Didi (Mamta Banerjee) in West Bengal, we will try to win over the masses,” a leader here said, confirming that the party would contest the 2014 Lok Sabha polls from the state.
Other than a tour programme being worked out for state unit leaders, a big rally is also being planned in the Braj area (Vrinadavan-Mathura) with Banerjee addressing the crowd.
In the 2012 assembly elections, the Trinamool contested 145 seats, stood second in one seat, fourth in one and had lost deposits in all others. It secured 0.36 percent votes of the total votes polled.
The Trinamool is also setting up a unit in Haryana.