Trinamul Congress chairperson and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is set to begin her election campaign in north Bengal after the Eid festival, party sources said on Thursday.
Ahead of the tour, she has personally spoken to several party candidates and senior leaders to address grievances arising from ticket distribution for the Assembly elections scheduled on 23 April.
According to party leaders, Miss Banerjee spoke to Siliguri Mayor Goutam Deb, the party’s candidate for the Siliguri Assembly seat, and later contacted four-time Rajganj MLA Khageshwar Roy late on Wednesday night in an effort to pacify him. Mr Roy had expressed strong dissatisfaction after the party nominated athlete Swapna Barman from Rajganj instead of the sitting MLA and had earlier issued a 48-hour ultimatum.
Following his conversation with the Chief Minister, Mr Roy held a Press conference on Thursday announcing that he would work for the party and extend support to Miss Barman. “I apologised to Mamata Banerjee over the phone. What I had said earlier was an emotional outburst after learning that I had been denied the ticket,” he told reporters, adding that the party chief had assured him of a suitable role in the organisation.
Similar discontent surfaced in other constituencies. Former minister Tajmul Hossain, who had represented Harishchandrapur, publicly criticised the party after being denied nomination. The TMC has fielded Motibur Rahaman, who had contested the 2021 Assembly election from the seat on a BJP ticket. Mr Rahaman began his campaign on Thursday from his village and later canvassed in areas considered strongholds of Mr Hossain.
Meanwhile, the BJP has intensified its campaign against TMC candidate Paresh Adhikari in Mekhliganj over his alleged involvement in the School Service Commission teachers’ recruitment scam and the controversial appointment of his daughter, whose service was later terminated. Mr Adhikari dismissed the issue, saying he had won the 2021 election by a comfortable margin despite the controversy and remained confident of victory in 2026. He also claimed that the Chief Minister would soon campaign in Cooch Behar.
Mr Adhikari further alleged that public dissatisfaction with the BJP over the ongoing SIR exercise and alleged harassment of citizens would influence voting patterns in the region.
In a Facebook post on Thursday, Miss Banerjee sharply criticised the Election Commission of India, accusing it of unfairly targeting West Bengal by transferring more than 50 senior officials, including top IAS and IPS officers, even before the formal election notification. She described the moves as politically motivated, questioned the delay in publishing supplementary electoral rolls, and warned that the actions were weakening the state’s administrative machinery. Asserting that Bengal would not bow to intimidation, she said the state would resist any attempt to undermine its democratic rights.