The women's wing of Trinamul on Tuesday launched a door-to-door outreach across Bengal as part of an attempt to read the pulse of women voters and strengthen their ties with the party ahead of the panchayat election scheduled early next year.

The first-of-its-kind initiative — a party source said that it never undertook such a gender-specific assessment of ground realities — has been named Cholo Gram-e Jai (Let's go to the villages).

Trinamul sources said the drive that began on Tuesday would continue at least till January 12. The party’s women leaders will spearhead it.

“A group of 10 women has been formed for every booth of a gram panchayat. They have been assigned to connect with 20-30 families regularly in their areas. They will sensitise women about the state government projects... take note of their complaints and needs.... All districts would send a weekly report to the state,” said a Trinamul leader in Calcutta.

State finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharya and chief of Trinamul’s women’s wing is leading this outreach.

The January 12 deadline for this drive, a source said, indicates that the panchayat polls are likely to be held in February, at least three months before the end of the tenure of current rural bodies. A source said that Trinamul has already instructed its leaders in the district to occupy walls for campaign graffiti.

According to him, the outreach will set the stage for the party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee to launch his full-fledged campaign for rural polls from the first week of December.

“Abhishek Banerjee is likely to hit rural pockets of Bengal as part of his panchayat poll campaign in December. There is a chance that Abhishek would start his campaign from East Midnapore, the home district of Suvendu Adhikari, BJP MLA and leader of the Opposition in Bengal Assembly,” said a source.

Mamata Banerjee would also resume her district tour in November, a source added.

Trinamul, a source said, is attaching “tremendous importance” to rural polls as it is keen to gauge the mood of the electorate on issues like scams in school recruitment and arrest of its leaders in connection with corruption-related cases before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The Trinamul leadership has sent a strict message to rural leaders that the party won’t tolerate any violence or malpractice in the rural polls.

A larger section of Trinamul believes that winning over 60 per cent of the rural bodies in the 2018 polls had affected its performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in which the BJP bagged 18 seats.

The indication of early polls and the Trinamul's elaborate plans around it have prompted oppositions like the CPM and the BJP to start their preparations from this month.

The CPM and its wings like the CITU and the All India Kisan Sabha have planned a month-long drive to reach out to every village in a bid to boost its connection with the grassroots as part of its preparations for the panchayat polls.

"We would meet the villagers to let them know how the government in Delhi and the same in the state are not working for the poor and rural people. We would campaign against the deprivation meted out by the Narendra Modi government and the culture of loot perpetrated by the Trinamul in Bengal" said CPM politburo member Ram Chandra Dome.

According to the plan, the CPM leaders from districts across Bengal will send a report of their performance to its state leadership at the end of November.

"This November drive is the first such an extensive ground level reachout plan to connect with people after the 2011 assembly polls. Although there is a target to reach all the villages in the state, we may not be able to reach all of them due to our organisational slackness.... But we need to identify that as well," said a CPM state committee member.

The BJP is yet to start such an extensive exercise, but sources in the saffron camp said that they are also realising to press the accelerator from November itself.

"Four observers headed by Sunil Bansal, senior state leaders, and four general secretaries would start visiting the districts from the first week of this month to identify the party's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in every rural pocket. These measures would help us to chalk out our strategy for the panchayat polls," said a senior BJP leader.