Trinamul supporters in East Midnapore’s Panskura on Thursday questioned the local MLA and other party leaders promoting Didi Ke Bolo about the need for the helpline to air complaints about local problems related to roads, drainage and water.

They told the leaders that if they did their jobs properly, the question of lodging complaints on the number — launched on Monday by Mamata Banerjee as part of a larger phone-and-Internet outreach drive — would not have arisen.

“We want minimum complaints to reach our chief minister from Panskura and so you do your work properly,” a Trinamul worker said at a meeting of party leaders to campaign for the Didi Ke Bolo drive.

Nearly 500 people attended the programme where Panskura West MLA Firoza Biwi, Pankura municipality chairman Nanda Mishra, vice-chairman Saidul Islam Khan and Panskura-I block president Dipti Jana were present along with other councillors and panchayat officials.

A slew of questions were shot by Trinamul workers and supporters on the need for a Didi ke Bolo helpline, with the common refrain being that if the leaders did their jobs properly, the people “would not have to tell Didi”.

The questions were put to the leaders following speeches by the MLA and Mishra lauding Trinamul’s new helpline.

“Why was Mamata compelled to launch such a scheme? It’s because local leaders are not doing their jobs properly. For example, there is a key road between Pratappur and Ranihati which was damaged by rain five years ago and has still not been repaired,” Amiya Bera, a Trinamul supporter, told the leaders.

Municipal chairman Mishra replied to the complaint, saying the project was stalled because of problems with the local contractor. “We want the MLAs here to be more active. We feel this will raise Trinamul’s profile much more than a helpline,” said local Trinamul worker Asok Kar.

To this, MLA Firoza Biwi responded by urging party workers and supporters to convey their grievances to Mamata on the Didi Ke Bolo helpline.

Another sore point was that garbage was not cleared in Panskura town and that drains are clogged. “Panskura is a town full of garbage. We have a widely used, but dirty, market area in front of the railway station. Why doesn’t the municipality do something about this,” asked Niranjan Das, a party worker.

Vice-chairman Khan argued that there were only six sweepers at work, with 60 such posts lying vacant. “How I am supposed to keep the town clean. We have already taken up the matter with municipal affairs department,” Khan said.

Jana, the block Trinamul president, promised to do more while insisting that people should use the helpline if problems were not solved at the local level.