Chief minister and Trinamul supremo Mamata Banerjee appointed state power minister Aroop Biswas as the observer of East and West Burdwan at a meeting with the leaders of the two districts on Friday, on the sidelines of her dharna in Calcutta against the Centre's "deprivation".

"Didi (Mamata) today appointed Aroop Biswas as the observer of the two districts during a meeting in Calcutta. She also formed a core committee with senior leaders of the district which will be headed by him (Biswas) as the observer," said Rabindranath Chatterjee, the Trinamul East Burdwan president.

Mamata announced her decision during a party meeting exclusively with the leaders from East and West Burdwan near the Ambedkar statue on Red Road where she was in a sit-in-demonstration against the Narendra Modi government.

The fresh appointment of Biswas raised curiosity among Trinamul insiders about whether the chief minister started the process of bringing back the observer system abolished by her nephew Abhishek Banerjee before the 2021 Assembly polls.

"Didi always believes in engaging her trusted aides and senior leaders to oversee district-level politics. She also engaged a few leaders like Firhad Hakim and Aroop Biswas to monitor the party's state of affairs but did not give them the designation of observers. So, the term observer returned to our party system after a long time," said a senior Trinamul leader.

"We have to see if she appoints such observers for other districts, too," he added.

A source in Trinamul said the party's chairperson appointed an observer following allegations of infighting among leaders in both districts, which was feared to hurt the party's Lok Sabha poll performance.

Among the three Lok Sabha seats in East and West Burdwan, Trinamul has Asansol and Burdwan Purba Lok Sabha seats. The third seat Burdwan-Durgapur was captured by the BJP in the 2019 polls.

The formation of a core committee comprising senior leaders like Moloy Ghatak, Rabindranath Chatterjee and Narendranath Chakrabarty was part of her drive to unite the party's rank and file.

"She instructed all the leaders present in today's meeting to forget differences and work together to ensure the victory of the party in three Lok Sabha seats," said a leader from East Burdwan.