Abhishek Banerjee on 5-day tour of north Bengal where BJP gained most in 2019

This is the first time Banerjee is visiting the region alone for so many days only to look into organizational issues plaguing the TMC.

In the crosshairs of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the run-up to the West Bengal assembly polls due in a few months, Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader and chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee on Monday started a five-day tour of the north Bengal districts where the saffron camp won seven of the region’s eight Lok Sabha seats in 2019 and now poses a major challenge to the ruling party.

File photo: TMC MP Abhishek Banerjee. (ANI)

This is the first time Abhishek Banerjee is visiting the region alone for so many days only to look into organizational issues plaguing the TMC.

Since October last year, BJP state and national leaders, including Union home minister Amit Shah, have been singling out Abhishek Banerjee in their speeches and social media posts, calling him “tolabaaj bhaipo” (extortionist nephew in Bengali) and accusing him of amassing wealth through unfair means. After joining the BJP on December 19, former minister Suvendu Adhikari intensified this attack by raising short slogans against Banerjee.

Mamata Banerjee, often referred to as pishi (aunt) by the BJP leaders, has almost become a secondary target if one goes by the rhetoric.

TMC leaders told HT that Abhishek Banerjee, who is a Lok Sabha member and heads the party’s youth wing, will mostly hold internal meetings with legislators and senior leaders from the region. He will hold two internal meetings in Siliguri on Tuesday. He is scheduled to meet leaders from Darjeeling, Alipurduar, South Dinajpur, Cooch Behar and Malda over the next few days.

On Thursday, Banerjee will address party workers at a public meeting in Gangarampur in South Dinajpur district where Mihir Goswami, the TMC legislator from the South Dinajpur seat, joined the BJP in November.

In 2019, the TMC’s tally in the Lok Sabha came down from 34 seats to 22, giving the BJP a position to pose a challenge to Banerjee for the first time. In terms of the 56 assembly segments in the eight Lok Sabha seats in north Bengal, the BJP was ahead of the TMC in 35.

The West Bengal assembly has 294 seats and Shah has announced that his party will oust the TMC government by winning more than 200.

Mamata Banerjee, too, spent three days in north Bengal in mid-December and her rally in Cooch Behar, where the BJP claims to have made deep inroads, witnessed a huge turnout. BJP leaders of both state and national level are also frequently camping in north Bengal. The most prominent among them is BJP national president JP Nadda.

“Abhishek Banerjee is coming to north Bengal mainly to take stock of the situation on the ground and personally interact with leaders who are facing dissidence in the ranks,” a senior TMC leader aware of the visit said on condition of anonymity.

Troubled by infighting among district leaders in north Bengal, Abhishek Banerjee and election strategist Prashant Kishor travelled to Siliguri together in October to iron out differences in the ranks. The duo discreetly held meetings with leaders from five districts at a hotel near the Tenzing Norgay bus terminus in Siliguri.

The spate in infighting in north Bengal has its roots in the induction of younger faces in district committees during a reshuffle in July last year. The structural changes have made many old-timers insecure, TMC leaders said.