Not sycophants who follow and adulate local netas but only dedicated and honest grassroots workers certified by the people will be nominated by Mamata Banerjee as candidates for upcoming three-tier panchayat polls.

That was how Abhishek Banerjee, the all-India general secretary of the embattled Trinamul Congress, defined “New Trinamul” before a massive gathering at Anandapur in West Midnapore’s Keshpur on Saturday afternoon.

At a time when the Trinamul Congress is battling negative perceptions of large-scale corruption in public services and with at least two top leaders of the party, Partha Chatterjee and Anubrata Mondal, thrown behind bars by central investigating agencies for their alleged involvement in multi-crore scams, Banerjee’s attempts at the party’s image makeover ahead of the panchayat polls were seen by many as the route he is desperate to extend all the way up to the scheduled general elections next year.

As examples of what the faces of the “new” party would look like, Banerjee showcased individuals who rejected sanctioned funds under the Centre’s Pradhan Mantri Avas Yojna scheme on personal grounds despite having dire need to rebuild their homes.

Abhishek touched the feet and felicitated Sheikh Hosinuddin, an ordinary resident of Keshpur who the former claimed belonged to no party, and the Dalabera couple – Manju, a Trinamul panchayat member from a Keshpur village and her husband, Abhijit, a party booth president for 10 years – for turning down the rural housing scheme funds. Banerjee showed pictures of their modest huts printed on flexes to the crowd to prove their dilapidated state and promised help from the party.

“This is the true face of Bengal, unlike the one that the BJP is trying to project as steeped in corruption. BJP has repeatedly stumbled and fallen in Bengal because they have failed to realize the true essence of this state and ended up insulting its people,” the TMC MP claimed.

“The days of those who used the Trinamul to build their own assets are over,” Abhishek declared. “Only those who would bow their heads before the people and silently work for them for the next five years will receive tickets for various tiers of the panchayat. Those candidates would be selected by Mamata Banerjee herself after people certify them as good to go and not by any other leader irrespective of what they may claim,” he added and passed on the already publicized Ek Dakey Abhishek phone number where he may be directly reached if complaints were to be registered.

“I am keeping a close watch on grassroots leaders, on the deeds of the last panchayat Pradhan in this state. I will get information about your acts the moment you deviate from your assigned tasks. Be warned there is an invisible eye watching over you,” Banerjee said.

Overwhelmed at the massive turnout and calling the rally “the greatest public meeting of my life”, Abhishek used the opportunity to address the nagging issue of the infightings at various levels within the party. “I am warning all those whose petty feuds are dearly costing this party. I am issuing a deadline of a month to change yourself and put a stop to all this. If you don’t oblige by then, I will administer my own medicine and then it may be too late for you to change,” he said.

“Today’s massive turnout is an answer to those who claim that factional fights are bringing the Trinamul down,” he, however, stated at the very outset of his speech.

In a sharpened attack on the BJP-ruled Centre for allegedly blocking central funds for MNREGA and PMAY, Banerjee called the move a “vendetta against the BJP’s loss in Assembly polls”. “We had completed house-to-house verification of 11 lakh beneficiaries for the rural housing scheme and had sent the list to the Centre on time,” he claimed.

“Will you not fight the BJP leaders who are now claiming credit for stopping the central funds?” Banerjee said without naming Suvendu Adhikari.