“Did Congress or CPIM ever give free rice to the poor people of Bengal?” West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee thundered during a public rally in a village in Diamond Harbour district getting ready for the Panchayat polls next month. The rhetorical question was followed up with another, “And what about the BJP?” She answered her own question. “They only gave it during the Covid-19 pandemic but then took it away.”
To thunderous applause, Didi continued, “If you don’t vote us back to power in the Panchayat polls, who will give you Laksmi Bhandar and free rice? Who will give you Kanyasree and free education for girls?”
It is clear that Banerjee’s campaigning in the villages of Bengal before the Panchayat polls is hard-focused on highlighting the public distribution schemes that she has launched in the last decade that she has been in power.
“Didi understands the needs of the masses like no other leader today and she has been designing developmental programmes for them and implementing them at the grassroots level,” Dola Sen, Trinamool Rajya Sabha member told The Statesman.
Indeed there are reportedly 68 schemes addressing various issues in need of development in the state.
A list of the salient ones were released by the party during May 2018, timed to coincide with the Panchayat Elections held that year.
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