CM’S NEPHEW ABHISHEK NAMED TMC NATIONAL GENERAL SECY

KOLKATA: Abhishek Banerjee, Trinamool Congress MP and nephew of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, was promoted to the post of the party’s all-India general secretary on Saturday.

Senior party leader and minister Partha Chatterjee also announced that the party, after its sweeping victory in the recently held assembly elections, would now expand its organisational footprint beyond the state.

“One of the biggest decisions taken by Mamata Banerjee in Saturday’s meeting was to appoint Abhishek Banerjee as the general secretary of the All India Trinamool Congress,” Chatterjee said.

Experts said that Abhishek played a key role in the party’s victory in the assembly polls in which the TMC won 213 seats of the 292 assembly constituencies where polls were held. The BJP could manage only 77. It was Abhishek who was instrumental in roping in poll strategist Prashant Kishor after the Lok Sabha polls in 2019.

Political commentator Biswanath Chakraborty said: “Abhishek Banerjee has emerged as a true leader and the second-in-command of the party through the 2021 assembly elections. So, it is obvious that now he would play a greater role.”

“Mamata Banerjee is at the helm of affairs in the TMC. So it is natural that her nephew would get elevated...” said Samik Bhattacharjee, BJP spokesperson in West Bengal. The TMC also made some other major organisational changes on Saturday.