With eye on 2019 elections, Mamata Banerjee opens Hindi wing in TMC

Mamata Banerjee's spoken Hindi may be far from fluent but she does speak it with an admirable level of confidence.

File photo

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday announced the opening of a Hindi wing in the Trinamool Congress Party and said that it would be headed by MLA Arjun Singh.

Felicitated by the Bihari Rashtriya Samaj at Netaji Indoor Stadium, Mamata said that she feels a special connect with the Hindi-speaking population of the country. "Please consider me as your daughter," she said as she announced the opening of the Hindi-wing of TMC. She then expressed her desire to open a Hindi University in the state as well.

Party workers feel this could be a decisive blow to BJP, a party they suspect is banking on Hindi-speaking voters in West Bengal to create inroads here. Some estimates suggest that 20% of all voters here are non-Bengalis and could may well prove to be the deciding factor between winning and losing in elections.

Sources say that this is also possibly why Mamata was at the Friday event and could primarily be looking at appeasing Biharis in the state and showing them that she makes no differentiation between Bengalis and non-Bengalis.