Mamata Banerjee on Monday said Gautam Deb would be the new mayor of the Siliguri Municipal Corporation where the Tinamul Congress stormed to power for the first time by bagging 37 out of 47 seats.

Senior leaders as well as ordinary supporters of Trinamul vouched that Deb’s style of functioning had worked more effectively and boosted the party’s image and had taken a dig at the likes of Dinhata MLA Udayan Guha who boasted of the party’s victory at some municipalities even before polls are held on February 27.

“The leaders who had been patting on their own back for winning municipalities without any contests should learn from Gautam Deb and other Trinamul candidates who put up a fight in Siliguri. Instead of indulging in any kind of dispute, they fought the polls and won them in the most genuine manner.

Even Opposition parties could not raise a finger at us as far as Siliguri is concerned. Deb has really shown us the way. Elections will be held to five municipalities in Cooch Behar district and elsewhere. We want our candidates and workers to follow the Siliguri way,” said former minister and Trinamul leader Rabindranath Ghosh who was fielded by Trinamul in the polls to the Cooch Behar municipality.

Guha, who had taken credit for winning the Dinhata civic body even before the polls, had been in the line of fire of Ghosh.

Elections to 108 municipalities are scheduled for February 27. Even before the voting, Trinamul won Dinhata, Suri, Sainthia and Budge Budge.

In Siliguri, the civic polls had been held peacefully as whole on Saturday, unlike Bidhannagar and Asansol, where sporadic incidents of violence were reported.

A senior Trinamul functionary in Calcutta pointed out that Deb’s plan to face the contest in a democratic way and counter the Opposition politically had been endorsed by the party leadership.

“It is only for Siliguri that the chief minister announced the name of the would-be mayor and that is none other than Gautam Deb. It is true that the leaders are elated as the party has won the civic polls in Siliguri for the first time. But it simultaneously indicates that the leadership is happy with him and the manner in which he had drawn up plans to win the civic body in a completely political manner,” he said.

When submission of nominations for the February 27 civic polls had closed down on February 9, a section of Trinamul insiders had raised questions in closed quarters about certain “proactive” steps of a section of party leaders which, they said, had “offered space” to the Opposition.

(Additional reporting by Main Uddin Chisti in Cooch Behar)