Trinamul’s central leadership has tasked state tourism minister Gautam Deb with monitoring the party’s activities in five districts of north Bengal ahead of the Bengal polls.

The decision at a party meeting in Calcutta on Friday indicates that chief minister and party chief Mamata Banerjee — who will reach north Bengal on Monday on a four-day trip — has retained her faith in Deb, a trusted lieutenant since Trinamul’s inception in 1998.

“I have been assigned by the leadership to look after party activities in five districts of north Bengal, Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling (plains), North and South Dinajpur. I will be in Calcutta to attend a special session of the Assembly on February 5 and 6. After that, I will start visiting all these districts and meet leaders and party workers,” said Deb.

These past few months, Trinamul has been steadily working in north Bengal where the BJP — winning seven of eight parliamentary seats of the region in 2019 — has set a target of 50 of 54 seats. Party insiders said Deb had his work cut out.

“In 2019, the BJP won in all these five districts… this is the primary challenge. Also, in districts like South Dinajpur and Alipurduar, Trinamul has internal differences. Earlier, Deb acted as a crisis manager and succeeded…. It will be interesting to see if he delivers this time,” said a party leader in Raiganj.

On Sunday, Jalpaiguri district Trinamul chief K.K. Kalyani also said while they were mulling new candidates in four of six Assembly seats in the district, they never had second thoughts about Deb for the Dabgram-Fulbari.

The party is also pushing the development agenda that yielded results for it in earlier elections.

On Monday, Mamata will reach north Bengal on a four-day visit and is scheduled to attend a number of government events. Among these include the inauguration of Uttarbanga Utsav and a mass marriage in Falakata of Alipurduar.

She will also visit Alipurduar town on Wednesday to speak at a public meeting organised by her party at Parade Ground of the town, said sources.

“In course of her visit, the chief minister will inaugurate a number of infrastructure projects. She will attend a social event (the mass marriage) and a public meeting. The itinerary shows that in north Bengal, Trinamul wants to play the development card on one hand and launch the poll campaign on the other,” said an observer.

Additional inputs by our Jalpaiguri correspondent