KOLKATA: Chief minister Mamata Banerjee is likely to undertake a three-day trip to the north Bengal districts of Alipurduar and Cooch Behar between April 24 and 26, in order to step up the heat against BJP before the panchayat polls.Sources said the focus of her tour will most likely be Cooch Behar, where BJP is actively wooing the Ananta Rai faction of the Greater Cooch Behar People's Association (GCPA). The chief minister, the sources added, is likely to meet a section of Rajbanshi leaders and even address a public meeting in Chakchaka, believed to a GCPA stronghold.Banerjee, on Bhasa Diwas (February 21) had declared that Rajbanshi-Kamtapuri will also be declared an official language. A committee headed by author Nrishinga Prasad Bhaduri has been constituted for studying the alphabet of this language. A month later, in north Bengal, she also indicated that the state is all set to form a Scheduled Caste Advisory Council on the lines of the existing Tribal Advisory Council (TAC). Cooch Behar, even Alipurduar, has a sizable SC populace.There are 11 seats reserved for SCs in the four districts: Cooch Behar 5, Jalpaiguri 4, Alipurduar 1 and Darjeeling 1, and Banerjee wants to ensure that none of these seats goes to other parties in the near future. Local party leaders hope the CM will also announce a development package in these districts. "We do support the Rajbanshi demand for a separate language and culture. But the party, and its chief minister, has zero tolerance for any statehood demand," said a local Trinamool leader.Banerjee's is likely to chair administrative meetings in the two districts and address public meetings. In Alipurduar, she is likely to address the issue of closed tea gardens.Her visit there isn't without reason. Though the ruling Trinamool controls nearly 125 of the 128 gram panchayats in Cooch Behar, BJP's aggresive posturing and attempt to forge a broader coalition with smaller regional parties is helping it stitch together pockets of support. The party has also witnessed with growing discomfiture the manner in which the local leaders who had helped resolve the enclave issue now turning into BJP flagbearers. The district Trinamool, which is trying to fend off factionalism in the ranks, isn't helping matters either. Local party leaders pin their hopes on the CM to weed out the internal differences.

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