The Trinamul Congress will monitor the social media activities of its party leaders, including MLAs and MPs, over the next two months to evaluate their performance in countering misinformation and Opposition narratives.

A source said the decision was taken after the top party leadership noticed a significant number of its leaders were inactive on social media when the party was on the back foot over the RG Kar issue.

"The party and the Mamata Banerjee government faced unprecedented attacks on social media following the RG Kar incident. Many party leaders did not respond to these social media posts despite the spread of thousands of falsehoods and misinformation. That is why the party has decided to closely watch the leaders' social media activities," said a senior Trinamool leader in Calcutta.

"We discovered that some leaders didn’t even repost social media posts by Mamata Banerjee and her second-in-command Abhishek Banerjee," he added.

Mamata publicly expressed her dissatisfaction with the leaders' inaction on social media and urged them to confront their rivals on these platforms to counter misinformation during the August 28 foundation day rally of the party's students' wing.

"We must fight against fake videos on social media. Everyone in the party, including block presidents, councillors, MLAs and MPs, must take on this task. We have to tell the truth to the people by countering these false videos," Mamata told the party's rank and file at the Mayo Road event.

According to a party insider, the TMC's IT cell has been tasked with monitoring social media activities and will submit a report card to Mamata once the survey is completed.

"Our party chairperson has asked everyone to become active on social media. We will certainly submit a report to her after observing the leaders' performance," said Debangshu Bhattacharya, Trinamool's IT cell president and spokesperson.

A Trinamool insider said the party's IT wing has only 34 members, which is no match for the BJP's vast cell. The Trinamool's IT cell does not yet have district committees.

"We have seen how prompt the BJP's MLAs and MPs are on social media to counter us. In terms of numbers, we have three times as many MLAs and MPs as the BJP in the state. If all of them and their teams become active on social media, we can easily counter the saffron ecosystem," said the insider.

The Trinamool believes that the massive campaign on social media, including misinformation spread by the BJP and other Opposition parties, has contributed to building narratives against the party and state government.

On August 22, Abhishek Banerjee, the party's national general secretary, posted on social media about how the country witnessed over 900 rape cases across multiple states while people were protesting against the RG Kar incident. The post was an attempt to shift the narrative back to the BJP concerning women's atrocities with national statistics.

"Only 2.6 thousand reposts were made of Abhishek's social media message. This shows how the party's rank and file have distanced themselves from social media. A significant number also did not repost Mamata Banerjee's social media posts," a leader said.

However, some party leaders believe that several "wrong" decisions by the state government prevented them from countering the Opposition.

"There were many wrong decisions by the administration, such as the reinstatement of Sandip Ghosh as principal of another medical college after he resigned from RG Kar. So, it wasn’t the right time to take on anyone on social media," said a Trinamool leader.

"Another important factor was the large number of common people, particularly women, who turned against us. While there were some provocations, countering common people on social media would have resulted in an adverse impact on the organisation," a leader in Purulia said.