Mamata likely to choose Women's Day to kick start election campaign

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will kick off the Trinamool Congress' campaign for the Lok Sabha polls on International Women's Day on March 8, a party leader said Wednesday. Incidentally, the TMC chief had also commenced her party's election campaign for the 2014 parliamentary and 2016 Assembly elections on the same date.

Banerjee is scheduled to participate in a rally convened by the party's women's wing from Shraddhananda Park to Park Street here on Friday to celebrate the International Women's Day. "Although election dates are yet to be announced, our campaign for the Lok Sabha elections will begin on March 8. During the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and 2016 Assembly polls also, Mamata di had started her poll campaign on Women's Day," a senior leader of the TMC's women's wing said.

The purpose of this rally is to create a "new India, United India and strong India", the posters of the rally read. "She (Banerjee) will give her message for the Lok Sabha polls. And after the dates are announced, a full-fledged campaign will begin," the TMC leader said.

Banerjee, who has been the prime mover of an anti- Bharatiya Janata Party front, had organised a mega Opposition rally here on January 19, during which she had given a call to oust the Modi government. The TMC, which is vying to play a major role in the formation of the next government at the Centre, has vowed to win all the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state. The party had won 34 seats in the 2014 general election.

(With inputs from agencies.)