Trinamul Congress leader Abhishek Banerjee held an impromptu road show at Indus in Bankura district on Monday following fervent appeals from thousands of people when he arrived to meet the relatives of a party worker who were killed and 40 others who were injured in a lightning strike.
The Diamond Harbour MP resumed Trinamul's mass outreach programme after a hiatus of two days. He had to suspend the Trinamuley Nabo Jowar (New High Tide in Trinamul) on Friday following a summons from the CBI for interrogation in the school recruitment "scam".
“I resumed my #JonoSanjogYatra after resisting all conspiracies and trampling all those intrigues at Bankura’s Indus after a gap of two days. The spontaneous love and huge support that I received today will be scripted in my heart...,” posted Abhishek on Facebook on Monday.
On Monday afternoon, Abhishek was greeted by at least 20,000 Trinamul workers at the helipad in Indus where he landed from Calcutta. At Indus, he spent around 90 minutes with the members of the bereaved family of a Trinamul worker who had been killed by a lightning strike. The relatives of 40 others who were injured in the lightning strike were also there.
The national general-secretary of Trinamul was visibly emotional when the family members of those Trinamul workers described the incident while they were near a gathering of the party.
“There was no plan for a road show at Indus as he went to meet the families who faced the tragedy. However, the crowd was so huge and there was an appeal from them for a glimpse of the leader. They requested him (Abhishek) to take a tour for a few minutes to greet those people who had been waiting for hours,” said a Trinamul leader in Bankura.
Alok Mukherjee, Trinamul president of the party's Bishnupur organisational district, said Abhishek had to get off his car several times to greet the party workers who gathered on the roadside for him.
“We tried to highlight how our leader was dragged into Calcutta while he was meeting the masses of Bankura. People have responded well and today’s event was well-attended," Mukherjee said.
Abhishek, who usually rides on the roof of his car to greet his followers during the outreach drive, had to walk for at least 4km following the demand from thousands of Trinamul workers.
In his message on social media, Abhishek said the outreach drive that he had started 26 days back from Cooch Behar would be a moment of pride in the political history of Bengal and he vowed to change the political tradition of the state through his 60-day drive.
“Trinamuley Nabo Jowar will place itself as a note of pride in the political history of Bengal and I believe this following such support from you, the common people of our Bengal. As you place your hands on my head, I came down on the roads to bring a change in Bengal politics,” wrote Abhishek in Bengali.
After the Indus road show, Abhishek held a similar programme at Kotulpur in the district as scheduled.
Abhishek, chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew, had on Saturday faced a nine-hour-forty-minute questioning by the CBI at its Calcutta office.
Top Trinamul leaders, including Mamata, mounted a sharp attack on the BJP for using central agencies like the CBI to derail the ongoing outreach drive by Abhishek as it was drawing a huge crowd in multiple districts.
