Trinamul leaders in north Bengal have decided to give voice to the woes of migrant workers who have had to move to other states for jobs in recent months because the 100-day rural job scheme has come to a standstill with the Narendra Modi government’s freeze on funds.

“We have gathered information on migrant workers from Jalpaiguri district and come to know that around 27,000 people have movedto other states in recent months. A majority of them are job card-holders of the MGNREGA,” said Mahua Gope, the Jalpaiguri district Trinamul president.

According to her, these people had to migrate under duress as the Centre had not been releasing funds under the MGNREGA since last year.

“The central government is responsible for forcing these people to leave the state... We are contacting these people and getting letters from them on the reasons behind their migration. The letters will be sent to Delhi,” she added.

The letter-collection drive is part of a Trinamul strategy unveiled by party national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee earlier this month to meet two objectives. First, the party is trying to create awareness about how the Centre’s funds freeze is causing havoc in rural Bengal. Second, it aims to turn the tables on the Modi government and extract political mileage in the rural polls and the Lok Sabha elections next year.

Citing irregularities in funds use, the Centre has stopped disbursing money to Bengal under various schemes. The biggest impact of the decision has been in rural areas, where the 100-day job scheme was a major employment creator in the post-lockdown period when lakhs of migrant workers returned to their homes.

As part of a strategy to highlight the problem, Trinamul has been organising programmes across the state, which began with chief minister Mamata Banerjee sitting on a dharna in Calcutta. Earlier this month, Abhishek had been to the office of Giriraj Singh, the Union minister of rural development and panchayati raj, in Delhi along with Trinamul MPs, seeking immediate release of funds.

“The migrant worker angle will surely add more punch to our campaign,” said a Trinamul leader in Calcutta.

A rough estimate — drawn up on the basis of information gathered from the administration of different districts — indicates that around 22 lakh people from Bengal work in other states as migrant workers while another five lakh serve in West Asia.

In Jalpaiguri, a senior Trinamul functionary said they had engaged teams to identify families of migrant workers.

“From April 24, we will visit these houses to gather their details. We will make video calls to them and urge them to send the letters to us. We believe a similar exercise will be taken up by our party colleagues in districts like Malda, North Dinajpur, Murshidabad and Cooch Behar from where lakhs have migrated to other states,” he said.

The BJP said the Trinamul strategy would not work as “the ruling party is neck-deep in scams”.