Trinamul Congress’s core committee for North 24-Parganas, constituted by Mamata Banerjee last week, will hold its first meeting on Monday in Madhyamgram as a damage-control exercise after the attack on an Enforcement Directorate contingent at Sandeshkhali and the arrest of the party's leader Shankar Adhya from Bongaon.

At a Trinamul meeting in Chakla on December 28, Mamata had constituted the 20-member core committee headed by Panihati MLA Nirmal Ghosh to review the party activities every 10 days and submit a report to her in the absence of district heavyweight Jyoti Priya Mallick.

“The core committee meeting is a routine exercise, being the first one after its formation. In that sense, party activities before the polls were to be the main agenda. But the ED raids at Sandeshkhali and Bongaon and their outcomes have embarrassed the party. So, this meeting will primarily discuss that,” said a Trinamul leader in Basirhat.

Several insiders blamed the party’s top leadership for its silence on the attack on the ED team.

But Trinamul’s Bagda MLA Biswajit Das ruled out any such concern.

“There is nothing to worry about at all. People know how the Centre has been conspiring against our party and its leaders. No allegation has so far been proven and nothing conclusive has emerged,” he said.

Das also ruled out any possibility of discussion on the Sandeshkhali attack on the ED officials and the resistance by a section of party workers during Adhya’s arrest.

“The agenda of the meeting was finalised earlier and there is no question of discussion on these two issues. Those are non-issues to us,” he claimed.

North 24-Parganas, the most populous in the country after Maharashtra’s Thane, is a crucial district with numerous urban, semi-urban and peri-urban centres with substantial support for Trinamul. Bengal's ruling party wants to win all five seats in the Lok Sabha polls in the district, overcoming the BJP’s influence among the Matua community and Trinamul's organisational drawbacks, particularly after the incarceration of district heavyweight Mallick, Bengal’s minister for forest, and public enterprises and industrial reconstruction.

Mallick’s importance — despite his wings being clipped after the 2021 Assembly elections, purportedly under Trinamul national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee’s instructions —was rooted in his ability to handle the politically volatile district with five Lok Sabha seats and 33 Assembly constituencies, both being the highest in Bengal.

In trying to sustain pressure on Trinamul, BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar met governor C.V. Ananda Bose and submitted a memorandum to him on Sunday, demanding “immediate action to restore safety and confidence in state’s law enforcement”.

In his memorandum, Majumdar stated: “It is distressing to note that such incidents reflect a disturbing trend where the state’s law and order machinery seem to be compromised, thereby undermining the safety of citizens and the sanctity of law enforcement operations.”