In an attempt to reach out to each section, the Trinamool Congress is releasing its manifesto in six languages including Nepali and Oi Chiki — the script for the Santhali language.
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The Santhals form the largest tribe in Bengal’s tribal demographic of 7.8% and they are concentrated in the seats of West Medinipur, Bankura and Burdwan — which fall in the erstwhile Jungle Mahal area, which for long remained under the control of the Left Wing Extremists.
In the 2016 Assembly elections, the Trinamool Congress published its manifesto in Oi Chiki. The party has been trying to reach out to the tribal population for a long time. Immediately after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee took charge, began schools with this language as the medium. In its new manifesto, it has promised a new syllabus with Oi Chiki until class X in the State board. The fact that two of these three seats — West Medinipur and Bankura are currently occupied by the BJP, makes the Trinamool’s bid to reach out to the voters here more urgent.
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Similarly, the party is trying to cater to the Nepali population, since the two constituencies where the Gorkha population is high — Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri are both held by the BJP. Besides these two, the manifesto will be published in Bangla, Hindi, English, and Urdu.
According to sources, the manifesto will largely be centred around the achievements of the Trinamool government in the last ten years. Sources also claimed that it could likely also put on paper Trinamool’s Opposition to the Uniform Civil Code.