GUWAHATI: The Assam Trinamool Congress (TMC) is looking long term, building a pool of leaders from across the state in a bid to strengthen the party at the grassroots.
As many as 355 leaders, who have been selected by the party hierarchy in the past eight months, attended a day-long state-level leadership training at the Srimanta Sankardev Kalakshetra here on Sunday.
“The frontline leaders at the training camp comprised various block and district presidents, state office-bearers, district youth and state youth presidents, office-bearers of youth units, district mahila presidents and office-bearers of various departments of the party,” Assam Trinamool Congress president Ripun Bora said, while addressing mediapersons on the sidelines of the leadership training programme.
West Bengal minister Manas Ranjan Bhunia; All India Trinamool Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP, Derek O Brien and Rajya Sabha MP Sushmita Dev among others graced the occasion.
Launched in April this year, the party has over the past eight months, has attempted to mobilise support by launching a series of joining programmes across the state.
“Eight months since the inception of Assam Trinamool Congress here, we are now creating a pool of leaders from the grassroots. They have been selected from across the block and state units, in a bid to strengthen the party further and position ourselves as a credible Opposition in the state,” Bora said.
On whether he would invite leaders such as former AASU president Dipanka Nath, who had recently resigned from his post in the influential students union, and other party leaders to Assam Trinamool Congress, the state party chief said the doors of the party were open to all grassroots (trinamool) leaders.
“As our party name suggests, we believe in working from the grassroots and creating leaders who can lead from the front,” he said.
Addressing reporters, Rajya Sabha MP and Trinamool Congress leader, Derek O’Brien said that the Mamata Banerjee-led All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) “is a party which has the courage and conviction to stand up to the ruling BJP”
“During the ongoing Parliament session, we have raised the point that the BJP is good only at making promises. But these promises are not kept. One such unfulfilled promise was that of doubling farmers’ income by 2022. But that has not happened till now even as 2022 comes to an end in a few days. This will not happen even in 2030,” O’Brien claimed.
“However, the TMC had made such a promise in Bengal in 2011 and farmers’ income in the state has not just doubled, it has increased three-fold by 2019,” he said.
Asserting that the party “launched in Assam will be here to remain for decades”, he said, “We have made rapid progress in building the organisation and serving the people over the past few months. The TMC is focussing on these two key aspects. We have come to Assam to stay, not for six months or five years, but for 20 to 25 years,” he claimed.
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At the end of the training, several leaders from the blocks and districts expressed that the programme was fruitful and would help them in building the party in their respective areas.
“Eight members from Dima Hasao TMC have come here to attend the training programme and we hope that the training will help us in strengthening the party. We are grateful to our party president for arranging the camp,” the district president, Dima Hasao TMC, said.
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