Anti-CAA-NRC protests: Mamata to hold two-day political workshop in Kolkata with students and youth leaders

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will be holding political training sessions with the Trinamool Congress (TMC) student and youth wing cadres, sources said on Thursday. A two-day training session has been arranged by the TMC at Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata on January 27-28, where the party chief, Banerjee, will herself be teaching politics to the students and the youth aligned with her party.

A two-day training workshop has been arranged at the end of the month for the purpose of this training session. This workshop will take place at the Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata, a popular venue for events. Thousands of students and youth leaders are expected to participate in this workshop. However, such an initiative begs the question - why is there this sudden need for a political training session with the youth?

If we look back in history, TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee is herself a product of student politics through and through, even before she consolidated her position as a tough Opposition voice during the erstwhile Left Front regime in West Bengal. Banerjee still holds a vocal political note, and her politics - from grassroots activism and sloganeering to organisation, everything showcases her strong roots as a student leader. However, her party, the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) still lacks a strong student wing.

With an agenda of opposing the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC), Banerjee has frequently been seen showing solidarity with students across the state, and by extension, the country. Entire student communities, despite not having particular political affiliations, have come together in several regions to oppose CAA-NRC. In this aspect, the West Bengal Chief Minister has repeatedly shown solidarity with those students nationwide. Even though universities like the Jadavpur University and the Presidency University do not have a natural affiliation to the ruling government in the state, this common cause of opposing the CAA-NRC has them in line with the TMC supremo.

Additionally, with this workshop, Mamata Banerjee aims to teach well educated informed youth to align with the TMC. Moreover, it is being said that since the saffron camp's student wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has now been working in a more organised manner in universities across the state, senior TMC leaders felt like amping up their own student wing, the Trinamool Chhatra Parishad (TMCP), was much needed.

Political commentators are of the opinion that the 2020 Municipal Polls will prove to be 'semifinals' for the TMC, ahead of the 2021 West Bengal Legislative Assembly polls next year. The cause to unite against the CAA and the NRC is something that Mamata Banerjee's party is currently strategizing upon for the election agenda. Therefore, in view of the electoral prospects, the TMC supremo will be holding these political training sessions with students and youth wing members to reach out to people regarding the CAA and the NRC.

Additionally, she will be formulating how to attract more youth members to the party's cause. In this backdrop, TMC student and youth wing leaders both are equally excited by the prospect of this workshop as the party supremo herself will now be training them, a unique opportunity for most party cadres. Even Mamata's nephew Abhishek Banerjee, who himself is the National President of the party's youth wing, All India Trinamool Youth Congress, shared the details of the program on his profile.

The BJP, on the other hand, have responded to this programme by calling all of this a 'political gimmick'. Indeed, the BJP has said that the saffron camp will not be surprised if these political stunts do not work out for the TMC in the real area, i.e. the upcoming polls. The general secretary of BJP in West Bengal, Sayantan Basu, said that these political workshops are destined to fail since, he claimed, the Trinamool Congress party does not have any fixed ideology. Therefore, they cannot instill the students and the youth with anything and will hence fail, said Basu. "Mamata Banerjee should, first and foremost, tell her student leaders not to take any money from students," Basu ended with a jibe.