Results of the general elections have indicated that the Trinamool Congress is making inroads into the tea belt of north Bengal where the party was traditionally weak.

Although the BJP has bagged the Alipurduars, Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling seats where the tea population constitute a considerable portion of the vote bank, victory margins drastically came down.

Also, in the Dooars tea belt, Mamata Banerjee’s party has secured leads in two Assembly segments — Malbazar and Nagrakata.

For example, in the Nagrakata Assembly segment (which is in the Jalpaiguri district but falls in the Alipurduar Lok Sabha constituency), the BJP had a lead of 50,244 votes in 2019. This time, Trinamool has a lead of 3,547 votes.

Also, in Madarihat, the home constituency of Manoj Tigga, the BJP candidate who won in Alipurduars, the BJP had a margin of 43,838 votes in 2019. This year, the margin has gone down to 11,063 votes.

Similarly in Kalchini, the lead has come down to 14, 865 votes from 47,432 (in 2019). Also, in Kumargram, the BJP got a lead of 7,641 votes over Trinamool this year while in 2019, it had a lead of 28,813 votes.

“That Trinamul is consolidating its base in the tea belt is clear with these data. The winning margins of the candidates further confirm it,” said Soumen Nag, a social researcher based in Siliguri.

In 2019, BJP had bagged Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri and Alipurduars seats with a margin of 4.13 lakhs, 1.84 lakhs and 2.43 lakh votes respectively.

This time, the margins have come down to 1.78 lakhs, 86,993 and 75,447 votes.

In 2021, Trinamool could win only one of the Assembly seats — Malbazar — in the tea belt. Altogether, there are around 10 Assembly seats where voters of tea gardens decide the results.

“It is evident that the slew of social welfare schemes extended by Mamata Banerjee to the tea workers and their families have made many of them vote in favour of our party. In 2026, we are confident of bagging most of the Assembly seats in the tea belt,” said Prakash Chik Baraik, a Rajya Sabha member of Trinamool from Alipurduar.

Baraik, who had contested against Tigga and lost to him, pointed out that the state’s decision to provide land rights and financial assistance to the tea workers is also helping them in consolidating their support base.

Also, other decisions like regular revision of tea wage and prompt intervention to reopen closed gardens have worked for the party, he said.

The saffron camp is also aware that their support base has withered over the years in seats, which they claim to be their strongholds since 2019.

“It is true that we got less votes in the tea belt this time as compared to 2019. Our leaders will sit with the results to find out what led to the decline so that appropriate plans can be drawn to ensure that we get all the Assembly seats of the tea belt in 2026,” said Tigga.