Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee and the party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee are expected to reach Meghalaya on Monday and address the party members on Tuesday with the aim of drawing up a roadmap for the Assembly elections in the Northeast state slated for early 2023.

The Bengal chief minister and the Diamond Harbour MP are scheduled to attend at Shillong’s State Central Library the party workers’ convention from midday on Tuesday. The convention is also likely to be addressed by Bengal minister and the party’s Meghalaya minder Manas Bhuniya and Trinamul’s Meghalaya unit chief Charles Pyngrope and its legislature party leader Mukul Sangma. The same afternoon, they will attend a pre-Christmas celebration at a resort in Shillong.

A Trinamul leader said Mamata’s visit to Meghalaya was well-timed as it would lift the party’s morale ahead of Assembly polls.

“There is an opportunity to gain from the people’s discontent with the Conrad Sangma government with its overall failure to deliver on development. Her trip will help the party,” he said, adding that Abhishek had already been there twice this year.

Abhishek has been working towards building Trinamul’s organisation in Meghalaya for some time, after he and poll consultant Prashant Kishor engineered the defection in November last year of 12 of the 17 Congress MLAs in the Northeastern state, which earned her party the status of principal Opposition in the 60-member Assembly.

Of the 12, led by former chief minister Mukul Sangma, who joined Trinamul, one resigned from the Assembly eventually.