Uttar Pradesh TMC to follow West Bengal model

LUCKNOW: The Trinamool Congress will be a cadre-based (karyakarta pradhan) party in UP, similar to what it is in West Bengal. The UP unit of the TMC is building itself from scratch and in doing so it is imitating the West Bengal model where it won the third straight term this May.
The three-member central committee of the TMC is overseeing the party’s strategy for UP as it tries to add more members in the state ahead of the 2022 assembly elections.
The UP TMC on May 24 launched the membership drive as a first step towards raising the structure of the party. Party’s president in UP Neeraj Rai said, “We met the new members we made in some of the districts in the last two days and what we have given them as the first responsibility for the party is to tour the state and add more members at the ground level. Once they give us a proper list of the members we will get the list verified. It’s essential we check the intention and background of people before we take them into the party’s fold.”
The membership drive was first launched in Lakhimpur Kheri. By now, districts like Prayagraj, Unnao, Barabanki, Mirzapur, Banda, Hamirpur and Mahoba have brought in new members, but the state unit, as a safe bet, would verify each of them before going public with their names. The `karyakartas’ from BSP and BJP might be showing more interest in joining the TMC in the state.
Though the TMC has been active in UP since 2005 the party’s organization got a rejig after it became a national party in 2016-17. This time, the party is harbouring an ambition to contest on maximum seats as an individual party and not as an alliance partner, like it did in the past by extending support to the bigger players of the UP politics.
The state unit of the party has set for itself three key roles at present -- finding new members, strengthening its existing structure in districts and figuring out issues that will become the party’s poll plank.
The party would be more active in rural UP, again drawing a leaf from West Bengal where the TMC has a strong presence in rural areas. The UP unit of the TMC would harp on setting up agriculture-based small-scale industries in villages to generate employment. The welfare schemes running in West Bengal would be talked about in UP also.
The TMC in UP is also deliberating on what would be the issues that it would base its election campaign on. Lack of employment is the first that the party organization has agreed upon. The issues would be assessed for every constituency. The party has formed over 63 district units already.