New Delhi, Nov 18 (NationPress) General Secretary of the ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, Abhishek Banerjee, is likely to head to North Bengal later this month to energize preparations for the upcoming 2026 state Assembly elections in an area where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the primary opposition, has established a formidable presence.

Reports indicate that Banerjee's itinerary includes several districts in North Bengal, such as Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri, and North Dinajpur.

This visit will not only reinforce his role as a leader responsible for organizational tasks but also uplift the spirits of local party leaders, who are under significant pressure from the BJP, especially compared to the southern parts of the state.

During the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, BJP's Manoj Tigga successfully held the Alipurduar seat, winning by a margin exceeding 75,000 votes. In the previous election of 2019, John Barla secured victory with a notable margin of over 2.4 lakh votes.

On both occasions, the Trinamool party was the runner-up. Furthermore, in the recent Parliamentary elections, the BJP emerged as the frontrunner in all but one of the seven Assembly constituencies that make up this Lok Sabha seat.

In the 2021 Assembly elections, the BJP won five of the Vidhan Sabha seats, leaving just two to the Trinamool.

Similarly, in the Jalpaiguri Lok Sabha constituency, the BJP’s Jayanta Kumar Roy retained his seat in 2024, despite a decrease in his winning margin of over 97,000 votes.

While the Trinamool secured five of the seven Assembly seats in this constituency in 2021, the BJP candidate led in four during last year’s Lok Sabha elections.

In the Raiganj Lok Sabha constituency, comprising seven Assembly segments in North Dinajpur, BJP candidates convincingly triumphed over their Trinamool rivals in both the 2019 and 2024 elections.

The outcome of 2024 followed the 2021 Assembly elections, during which Trinamool candidates won in six segments, conceding only one to the BJP.

In the nearby Balurghat Lok Sabha constituency, which includes six Assembly segments in South Dinajpur and one in the North, Union Minister of State Sukanta Majumdar has emerged victorious in both 2019 and 2024. Four of the Assembly segments favored the Trinamool, including the sole seat in North Dinajpur, while the BJP claimed three.

Traveling further north, the Darjeeling Parliamentary constituency has consistently voted against the ruling party in the state since 2004, with BJP candidates winning in 2009, 2014, and the current MP Raju Bista in 2019 and 2024.

Even in the last Assembly elections, the BJP won five of the seven seats in this constituency, leaving one each for the Trinamool and the Bharatiya Gorkha Prajatantrik Morcha.

The situation has been similarly competitive in adjacent Assembly seats where the BJP has either emerged victorious or narrowly lost.

This trend has raised concerns for the Trinamool leadership, particularly Mamata Banerjee, the Chief Minister of West Bengal.

In early August, Abhishek convened meetings with party leaders from several North districts, viewed as a strategy to rejuvenate the organization at the grassroots level in anticipation of the 2026 Assembly elections.

In Cooch Behar, the Trinamool successfully reclaimed the Lok Sabha seat from the BJP in 2024, maintaining a significant lead in four of the seven Assembly segments. The party managed to recover in at least two segments where it had previously lost five out of seven in the 2021 Assembly elections.

Abhishek's August meeting with district Presidents and relevant ministers aimed to devise organizational modifications in light of the forthcoming Assembly elections and the expected announcement of the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

Thus, his upcoming visit serves as an extension of those discussions, allowing him to oversee booth-level coordination and enhance voter outreach, with state elections likely occurring in the first half of the coming year.