Trinamul leaders in Alipurduar district have decided to bridge the “language gap” in the tea estates of the Dooars.

Prakash Chik Baraik, the district Trinamul president who hails from a tea estate, visited a number of tea estates during the past few weeks and found that most workers and their families do not understand Bengali. Even if they understand it and speak it a little, they cannot read Bengali.

“It is because of this communication gap that they have no idea about the array of schemes prepared by the state government for their socio-economic uplift. Although most are getting benefits of these schemes, they don’t know if these are central or state schemes,” said Baraik.

Hence, the district Trinamul leadership has decided to come up with publicity materials in different languages for tea gardens. They have already started putting posters, banners and hoardings in these languages at estates to apprise people about the array of initiatives taken up by the Mamata Banerjee government, including Cha Sundari free housing scheme.

Trinamul insiders said they have started printing the publicity materials in Hindi, Nepali and Sadri.

“Majority of the tea population converse in one or more of these languages,” said a source.

A senior Trinamul leader in the district said language was one of the main reasons for the party lagging behind the saffron camp in the tea belt

In the past three-four years, the BJP has established itself as a major political force in the tea belt. In the Assembly polls held this summer, Trinamul won only one seat (Malbazar) in the tea belt.

“So far, most Trinamul publicity materials in tea gardens were in Bengali. That is why workers and their families do not know about the state government schemes. BJP leaders on the other hand, communicate mostly in Hindi. This seems to be an important factor for the BJP consolidating support in the tea belt,” the leader said.

In north Bengal, this is the first time that the ruling party of the state has decided to use languages other than Bengali.

“In the hills, some local Trinamul leaders speak in Nepali with the Gorkha population. But elsewhere, Trinamul leaders use Bengali. This (using other languages) is a new initiative,” said a political observer.

The initiative, Baraik said, is a part of the party’s plan to revive support of the tea population ahead of the three-tier panchayat election in 2023.

“We have also instructed our party leaders to use any of these three languages while communicating with the tea population,” said Baraik.

The party has also started workshops at the block level where educated youths who are party workers from tea estates can learn about state government’s initiatives and in turn convey the same to the tea population.

“These youths can speak in any of these three languages. After the workshop, they will reach out to every family in their respective tea estate and brief them about the state government schemes for them,” said Baraik.