Mamata Banerjee wrapped up the first round of her political engagements — 13 public meetings and three road shows in 14 days — in north Bengal on Tuesday afternoon ahead of the first phase of polls in the state on April 19.

The carpet bombing of programmes captured the Trinamool Congress’s all-out effort to deal a blow to the BJP in a region where it bagged seven of the eight seats in the last Lok Sabha polls.

“I cannot recall any previous instance of Didi spending so many days in north Bengal and holding so many programmes,” said Siliguri mayor Gautam Deb before the rollout of a road show led by Mamata and Darjeeling’s Trinamool nominee Gopal Lama from Air View crossing here.

Juli Biswas, a homemaker who was waiting behind the fences to catch a glimpse of the chief minister, agreed with Deb.

“I don’t understand politics.... But I know that she came on March 31, after the storm, and has been here for so many days except for a couple of short trips to Calcutta in between. People are discussing it,” she added.

North Bengal, with its snow-capped mountains and sprawling tea gardens, has always been very close to Mamata’s heart. She has made innumerable visits to the region since becoming chief minister in 2011. The visits, however, did not yield the desired political dividends as Trinamool failed to replicate the electoral success of south Bengal in the north.

“In the Lok Sabha elections this time, instead of voting for an outsider, please cast your votes for Trinamool,” Mamata urged the over 1.43 crore voters of the region during her five-minute speech at Bagha Jatin Park where the road show ended.

Before the road show at the heart of Siliguri, Mamata was 60km away in Jalpaiguri’s Mainaguri —one of the storm-hit areas — where she addressed a public rally.

“I rushed to Jalpaiguri immediately after the storm hit the region.... I went to the hospital, met the families of the victims and tried my best to organise proper medical attention for the injured. Where were they (the BJP)?” Mamata asked at the rally.

Mamata had reached Jalpaiguri on the night of March 31 after the storm hit the region, killing at least four people and ravaging over 2,000 homes.

During this leg of her north Bengal visit, Mamata spoke on the same theme several times, ruing how the voters had favoured the BJP over the TMC in most elections.

The BJP had bagged all three seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in which it got around 47 per cent of the overall vote share in the region. Trinamool got around 36 per cent of the votes in north Bengal.

In the Assembly elections in 2021, Trinamool’s vote share was about 1.5 per cent more than that of the BJP, but the saffron party got seven more seats than the ruling party in north Bengal.

Mamata Banerjee cradles a baby during a road show in Siliguri on Tuesday. Picture by Passang Yolmo

“You have often voted for us in local elections, but we need your support in the Lok Sabha elections to save the country,” Mamata said.

As she went on to explain why the country had to be saved from the clutches of the BJP, Mamata referred to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s comments on the consumption of non-vegetarian food during Navratri.

“You eat your vegetarian food, why dictate to others what they would eat?” asked Mamata, who spoke extensively on how the BJP government was planning to bring in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the garb of implementing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

“Then they will bring the Uniform Civil Code and you will lose all your identity.... Then they will create a situation wherein no elections will be held in the country. If you want to save the country, vote for the Trinamool Congress here and our friendly parties in other states,” Mamata said before adding that her party would join other “friendly parties” in forming the government after the elections.

She did not mention whom she meant by “friendly parties”.

The claim about government formation was aimed at questioning the rationale behind predictions that the BJP would get more than 400 seats along with its allies.

“You will not come to power in the country and you will get zero in Bengal.... I can tell you that they won’t get even 200 seats,” the chief minister said in her last public programme before April 19 when Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar will to the polls.

North Bengal’s importance in the Trinamool’s overall poll arithmetic has gone up for another reason, said a political analyst who did not wish to be named.

“There are indications that Trinamool may find it difficult to retain some south Bengal seats like Tamluk, Contai and Arambag, which the party had won in 2019... They have to cover the losses and that’s why the focus is more on north Bengal,” said the analyst.

BJP’s Siliguri MLA Shankar Ghosh, however, came up with a different narrative to explain Mamata’s prolonged stay in the region.

“She knows it well that the Modi wave is very strong in north Bengal... She is rattled and that’s why she is staying on and running around,” Ghosh said.