Leaders of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in Cooch Behar are pinning hopes on the visit of the party’s national general secretary and MP Abhishek Banerjee on January 13 to resolve the long-running intra-party feud in the district amicably.

Feuding apart, the district presents a political challenge for Bengal’s ruling party. Of the nine Assembly constituencies in Cooch Behar, the BJP currently holds six seats. However, in the Lok Sabha polls of 2024, Trinamool’s Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia won the parliamentary seat.

A senior Trinamool leader in the district said the party leadership was focussing closely on Abhishek’s meeting, particularly after party chief and chief minister Mamata Banerjee, during her visit to the district last month, asked district leaders to
work unitedly.

“Despite the chief minister’s message, factional differences are still continuing. We are waiting to see how Abhishek Banerjee addresses these internal issues during his visit,” the leader said on condition of anonymity.

According to party sources, the Trinamool district unit is currently divided into two factions. One group is led by Abhijit De Bhowmik, TMC district president, North Bengal development department minister Udayan Guha, MP Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia, and district chairman Girindranath Barman.

The other faction is led by Cooch Behar civic chairman Rabindranath Ghosh and includes Trinamool leaders like Partha Pratim Roy, Khokan Mia, Binay Krishna Barman, Parimal Barman, Azizul Haque and Laxmikant Sarkar.

The district party leadership has stepped up preparations for the Abhishek event to be held at Kadamtala field in Ghughumari gram panchayat under the Cooch Behar South Assembly constituency on the outskirts of Cooch Behar town.

Party sources claimed that the Abhishek event was aimed at drawing a crowd of over one lakh supporters.

Political activity in the area has intensified, with party leaders expecting Abhishek to set an ambitious goal of winning all Assembly seats in the district in the 2026 elections, similar to the target he set during a recent meeting in Alipurduar.

On Sunday, leaders of both the camps visited the venue.

“We are united and working hard to make the upcoming meeting a historic event,” De Bhowmik said.

Senior district police officers and district administration officials also inspected the venue to review security and infrastructure arrangements.

Preparatory meetings and processions have begun across the district. An organisational meeting was held in the Panishala area on Sunday.

Cooch Behar, with its nine Assembly constituencies, has traditionally been a difficult terrain for the Bengal’s ruling party to penetrate.

In the 2021 Assembly elections, the party won only two seats in the district. After a subsequent by-election, Trinamool currently holds three seats and the BJP the remaining six.

While the ruling party is closely monitoring minority-dominated districts such as Murshidabad and Malda, Cooch Behar has been accorded special importance to prevent any erosion of the minority vote base. The Rajbanshi vote bank also remains a crucial factor in the district’s electoral dynamics.