With the 2026 West Bengal Assembly elections firmly on the horizon, Union home minister Amit Shah is set to sound the BJP’s poll bugle in North Bengal with a closed-door organisational meeting in Siliguri on 31 January, bringing together over 5,000 party leaders from booth to district levels.
The high-stakes indoor meeting will see the participation of BJP MLAs, MPs and organisational leaders from five key organisational districts ~ Cooch Behar, Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling and Siliguri ~ underscoring the party’s renewed focus on reclaiming political ground in the region.
According to party sources, the meeting will be held at Uttara, located at Gosainpur near Bagdogra Airport. Amit Shah is scheduled to arrive around 3 p.m. and return the same evening after concluding the deliberations.
Senior BJP leaders said the home minister will conduct a detailed review of the party’s performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, assess outcomes of past Assembly polls, and evaluate the current political climate amid the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in North Bengal.
Preparations are in full swing to manage the large-scale mobilisation of party functionaries from across the five organisational districts. BJP organisational Siliguri district president Arun Mandal said that only selected leaders from each Shakti Kendra, which comprises a cluster of booths (particularly from rural areas) have been invited to attend.
“Amit Shah will take a party class focused on the 2026 Assembly elections and assign responsibilities based on Assembly segments,” Mandal said, adding that the emphasis would be on coordination between booth-level workers, senior leaders, and district and state leadership to maximise voter outreach in northern North Bengal.
Meanwhile, the Trinamul Congress (TMC) has announced plans to counter the BJP’s moves politically. TMC leaders said the party would hold parallel meetings at locations where BJP programmes are organised.
The political temperature has already risen following a BJP meeting held recently in the Matigara-Naxalbari Assembly segment, where Union Minister of State for Education Sukanta Majumdar allegedly launched a scathing attack on local TMC leaders, including the Sabhadhipati of the Siliguri Mahakuma Parishad.
In response, Siliguri TMC organisational district chairman Sanjay Tebriwal said the party is preparing to hold a meeting at the same venue on 30 January. He also claimed that TMC has lodged police complaints against Majumdar and is considering defamation proceedings.
“TMC will hold meetings at the same venues to counter BJP’s attempts to malign our leaders without any valid proof,” Tebriwal said.