The Trinamool Congress leadership kept faith in two senior leaders of north Bengal and simultaneously brought in two junior leaders of the region to the forefront to represent the party.

On Monday, at the national executive committee meeting of Mamata Banerjee's party, it was decided that Gautam Deb and Udayan Guha would speak on behalf of the party on matters related to north Bengal. Prakash Chik Baraik has also been assigned the same responsibility.

Deb, a former minister and the current mayor of Siliguri, is an old member of the national executive committee of the TMC. Guha, who was earlier with the Forward Bloc and joined the TMC in 2015, is the north Bengal development minister.

Baraik is a Rajya Sabha member and heads the party in Alipurduar district.

“I have been working according to the instructions of Mamata Banerjee and other senior leaders since 1998 when Trinamool was formed. I thank the party for reposing faith in me and will keep on serving it,” said Deb.

Guha said he would work to augment the TMC's support base. “It is a new responsibility for me. I will always adhere to the party's line,” he said.

Senior functionaries of Trinamool pointed out that in several elections earlier, both Deb and Guha had succeeded in ensuring the win of the party's candidates.

“That the leadership is giving importance to Gautam Deb is evident as he was sent to Delhi to head a delegation of chiefs of civic bodies to attend a conference of the 16th finance commission. Also, it is under his leadership that the TMC could win the Siliguri Municipal Corporation and the Siliguri Mahakuma Parishad for the first time,” said a party leader.

Guha, on the other hand, managed to wrest the Dinhata Assembly seat in a bypoll in 2021 even though the BJP had won it in the Assembly elections. He was also instrumental in ensuring the party's win in the bypoll in Sitai Assembly seat that was held earlier this month.

Along with them, TMC's decision to bring Baraik and Suman Kanjilal, both of whom are from Alipurduar, to the forefront has been perceived as a “reward” for the party's win at the Madarihat by-election that was held along with Sitai and four other seats.

Kanjilal, who is still a BJP MLA in “official” terms, was earlier put in the post of the chairman of the public accounts committee of the Assembly and has been included in the list of spokespersons who will speak on issues about the Assembly.

Finance commission

Gautam Deb, the mayor of Siliguri, attended the national conference of mayors and chairpersons on strengthening local self-governments of India organised by the 16th Finance Commission in Delhi on Tuesday.

Deb, who represented the state along with Dilip Jadav, the chairman of Uttarpara municipality, and Aditi Roy Choudhury Mitra, the chairperson of Basirhat municipality, highlighted certain issues at the conference.

“We underscored the need to increase untied funds and the amount of allocation. Also, we pointed out that the central government departments do not pay any tax to us and a mechanism should be evolved in this regard. Further, we stressed the need to make certain conditions related to allocation and sanctioning of funds, more flexible,” said Deb over the phone from Delhi.

Additional reporting by our Alipurduar and Cooch Behar correspondents