Chief minister Mamata Banerjee is slated to be in Siliguri on September 21, 22 and 23 to hold review meetings for five north Bengal districts. The visit will be the first since Covid-19 broke out.

“The chief minister is likely to reach Siliguri on Monday (September 21) and she would hold review meetings from Uttarkanya (the branch secretariat),” said a source.

According to the schedule, Mamata will hold the review meetings of Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar on September 22. The following day, review meetings for Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Cooch Behar would be held.

According to sources, Mamata would hold the meetings through video conference.

“Only district magistrates of the respective districts, along with the chief secretary and the home secretary, would be present at Uttarkanya.

Other district officers would attend the meetings through video conference,” said a source.

“The chief minister could have easily held the meetings from Nabanna as it would be held through video conference. But she has decided to visit north Bengal for several reasons,” said an official.

Trinamul insiders said Mamata’s decision to visit Siliguri and hold the review meetings from Uttarkanya amid the pandemic clearly suggested that she was keen on monitoring existing projects and launching new ones in the north Bengal districts.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Trinamul had come first in just 12 out of 54 Assembly seats in north Bengal.

“Considering the tough fight ahead in the Assembly polls, each constituency is important for us. The chief minister made it clear that she would focus on north Bengal in the next few months,” said a Trinamul MLA.

In north Bengal, a number of issues have cropped up in the past few months, right from the Gorkha-dominated Darjeeling hills to the Rajbanshi belts of Cooch Behar.

The most prominent among them are the demands for conferment of land rights on the hill residents and people living in tea plantations in the foothills, creation of autonomous council for the Rajbanshis like the neighbouring state of Assam and fixing of minimum wage for tea garden workers.

“The state government principally approves these demands... It is interesting to see what the chief minister announces during her north Bengal visit,” said a source.

Mamata has recently held review meetings of a number of south Bengal districts through video conference from Nabanna.