Trinamul supporters, led by party leaders, assembled near the residences of eight BJP legislators in north Bengal on Wednesday and launched a silent sit-in to raise a slew of issues related to the tea population dwelling in the region.

Demonstrations were held near the houses of Raju Bista and John Barla, the BJP MPs of Darjeeling and Alipurduar. Also, Trinamul supporters sat in protests close to the residences of four BJP MLAs from Alipurduar district and two MLAs from Darjeeling district.

In the past month, this is the second time that Trinamul has held such protests. The protests, party leaders said, will continue till March 6.

For the past few months, Mamata Banerjee’s party is constantly flagging the issues of tea workers which involve the Centre and its allied organisations.

Among these issues include the pending provident fund of hundreds of tea workers because of technical glitches, the delay in allocation of funds for the development of women and children in the brew belt which was announced in the Union budget two years back, and the halt in the disbursement of the stipend paid to the tea workers’ children.

“Central ministers and BJP leaders made a series of commitments to the tea workers and got their votes. They promised tea workers that the Centre will take steps to reopen closed tea estates but could not reopen a single tea garden. But the state government facilitated the reopening of a number of gardens. Also, a sum of Rs 1,000 crore had been set aside for the development of workers’ families in the 2021 budget but not a penny has reached them so far,” said Nirjal Dey, the Darjeeling district secretary of INTTUC, the workers’ union Trinamul.

He said that though a number of BJP MLAs and MPs were elected from north Bengal, none of them had taken any initiative for the tea workers.

“That is why we have launched the protests. People who had voted for the BJP with huge anticipation should understand that the party only makes empty promises and stokes sentiments to draw votes,” said Prakash ChikBaraik, the Trinamul president of Alipurduar district.

In north Bengal, support of the tea population decides the results of around 14 Assembly seats and three Lok Sabha seats.

Political observers pointed out that tea workers’ support is also important in the panchayat elections.

“Whichever party gets support has a huge chance of grabbing the zilla parishads of Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar districts. Trinamul knows it and has taken a two-fold strategy. On one hand, it is raising questions on the performance of BJP legislators, and on the other, the state government is giving sops to the tea population, ranging from free houses to identity cards,” said an observer.