Deb loses district chief's chair - Back-to-back election debacles in Siliguri and disunity in party key reasons

(From left) Gautam Deb, Ranjan Sarkar

Avijit Sinha, TT, Siliguri, Nov. 5: Gautam Deb today announced he would step down as Trinamul's Darjeeling district president about an hour after meeting Mamata Banerjee, ending an 11-year tenure that saw him face back-to-back election setbacks this year.

His successor is Ranjan Sarkar, who is the Darjeeling district Trinamul Youth Congress president and the councillor of Siliguri's ward 20, the home ward of mayor Asok Bhattacharya.

Bhattacharya has been the single biggest thorn in Trinamul's side in Siliguri, where the state's ruling party lost the municipal elections in April and did poorly in the rural mahakuma elections in October.

Party sources said that the two losses within months at a time Trinamul has surged in districts such as Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar, proved to be Deb's undoing.

Sources in Trinamul said that after the Mahakuma loss, Deb's removal as the Darjeeling unit chief was certain. The question was when it would happen, although the north Bengal development minister said today that he was not in favour of leaders staying on in one post for more than 10 years.

Deb, since becoming the Darjeeling unit chief in 2004, has clocked 11 years and was considered Mamata Banerjee's point man in north Bengal.

Today, the minister told a news conference: "District Trinamul leaders have held a meeting with our state general secretary and party's observer for Darjeeling district Arup Biswas. At the meeting, it was decided that some changes would be made in the party's district committee and also in other frontal organisations.

"Accordingly, Ranjan Sarkar, who is the president of our youth wing here, has been selected as the new district president of the party. Our party supremo Mamata Banerjee was in our district today. The decision was conveyed to her and she has endorsed it."

Last night and this afternoon, Mamata held meetings with senior Trinamul leaders of Darjeeling district in Sukna, near Siliguri.

Deb made the announcement after returning from the meetings, barely an hour after Mamata took her flight at Bagdogra to Calcutta.

A Trinamul source said: "Since 2011, three elections were held in Darjeeling district - parliamentary elections, the Siliguri Municipal Corporation polls and the three-tier Mahakuma polls. In all these polls, the party has performed miserably in the district, unlike in the other six districts of north Bengal where the party has progressed in terms of election results in the past four years," a senior Trinamul leader said.

"After the 2014 Parliament polls, Deb and the leaders close to him could save their jobs by explaining to state leaders that Bhaichung Bhutia, Trinamul's Lok Sabha candidate, was defeated because the Modi wave," the source said.

But after the "pathetic performance of Trinamul in the Siliguri Municipal polls and the Mahakuma elections, the development minister could not provide any explanation to the state party," the source said. "The results made Mamata unhappy with him."

The Trinamul insider added: "On the other hand, Asok Bhattacharya could come back into political limelight with the success of his Siliguri model."

He said such a comeback by Bhattacharya, despite Gautam Deb's elaborate campaign of spending hundreds of crores for development of Siliguri, has "disappointed our state leaders".

Deb's dipping graph was also contrasted in party circles with the rise of Sourav Chakraborty, the party's district chief of Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar.

"Sourav had to face factionalism and was even assaulted by party workers ahead of the municipal polls over the selection of candidates. Even then, he managed to get a favourable mandate with his toil. It is evident that state leaders drew such comparisons. In other north Bengal districts, whether Cooch Behar or Malda, Trinamul has progressed in terms of poll results," a Trinamul leader based in Jalpaiguri said.

"Also, the state party has reports that Deb could not keep the Darjeeling Trinamul united. Faction fights ahead of the civic polls and reports of alleged sabotage because of infighting were also heard," the Trinamul leader said.

Deb was asked today if he had been removed.

"I have functioned as the district president for over 10 years and had been telling the state leaders a younger person should take my post. It is my perception that one should not stay in such posts for more than 10 years," he said.

He said he did not know of "any grievance articulated by any leader.... It is good that the party has taken an appropriate decision at the right time," Deb said, although

In the team to be headed by Ranjan Sarkar, who so far been seen by Deb's side always, three new vice-presidents have been selected.

"Nantu Pal, Alok Chakraborty and Sanjay Sharma are the three new vice-presidents. Mamata Nandi and Jyotsna Agarwal are the new general secretaries," Deb said.

Pal and Deb are not the best of friends.

A three-member advisory committee has also been formed, where Deb has been made the chairman, and senior leaders Prashanta Nandi and Pratul Chakraborty have been included.

As Ranjan Sarkar has been elevated as the president of the district party, Bikash Sarkar, who has recently joined Trinamul from Congress, will be the new district president of the Trinamul Youth Congress.

Jyoti Tirkey, who had resigned from the post of Trinamul Mahila Congress president, has been reinstated.

A number of senior leaders like Krishna Chandra Paul, who was one of the working presidents at the past committee and a senior leader, Bijon Nandi, who was a general secretary and was recently accused of ransacking the police outpost at New Jalpaiguri, did not get a berth in any decision-making tier of the party.

Missing from the list of names was also Rudranath Bhattacharya, the Siliguri MLA, whose name has repeatedly popped up in the SJDA scam, though he has not been charged.

Deb clarified that the new district president, in consultation with Arup Biswas, would include some other members in the district committee.

Ranjan Sarkar said the leaders "will all work together to strengthen our party and its support base here".

His selection and induction of fresh faces in important posts, however, has led to disappointment among some senior leaders.

"We fail to understand why Ranjan Sarkar was chosen as the new district president when there are several senior and competent leaders. Also, a number of new faces has been brought in higher levels of the committee. We are sceptical as whether these changes in party's hierarchy can at all help in turning the tide in Trinamul's favour of the Assembly polls," a senior district leader said.