Mamata Banerjee is scheduled to visit Jhargram on Monday to kick off the World Tribal Day celebrations following which she will hold a meeting with the local administration.

This will be Mamata’s first district-level administrative meeting since assuming the office of the chief minister for the third time in a row.

Sources at Nabanna said Mamata would fly to Jhargram in a chopper on Monday afternoon and inaugurate the programme of the World Tribal Day which her party celebrates every year. After holding the administrative meeting, she is scheduled to stay there on Monday and visit the flood-affected Ghatal before leaving for Calcutta the following day after, said a senior state government official.

“We are eagerly waiting for the visit of our chief minister to listen to her guidance for the development of the people of Jhargram…. We are happy as she chose a date which is dedicated to tribal people,” said Birbaha Hansda, the minister of state in charge of forest and Trinamul MLA from Jhargram.

World Tribal Day or International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples is observed every year on August 9.

“We are really happy as the chief minister is starting her trips to districts with Jhargram from where the people had gifted her all four Assembly seats,” said minister Hansda.

Sources said after Jhargram, Mamata would visit Bankura, Purulia and other districts of central and south Bengal.

Jhargram is among the most tribal-dominated districts in Bengal with around 31 per cent adivasis.

Sources said after the electoral victory, Mamata had earlier planned to visit north Bengal in June but it was cancelled because of bad weather conditions in the northern part of the state following heavy rains.

Government officials said since coming back to power for the third term as chief minister, Mamata had been preoccupied with the handling of the Covid-19 situation and political issues of national importance like the Pegasus spyware allegation. As a result, she did not focus on her regular district trips amid her busy schedule, said a source.

“Now that the Covid situation is under control, she is likely to start her district tours.… She may give special directions for development in the Jungle Mahal,” said a senior official in Jhargram.

Trinamul leaders in the Jungle Mahal consider the visit of the chief minister to Jhargram politically significant as the party managed a turnaround there in the elections.

Mamata herself gave special attention to the Jungle Mahal by reshuffling her party leadership by including the face of Lalgarh movement Chhatradhar Mahato in the state committee along with changing several district functionaries. Mahato, however, is now in jail after the NIA arrested him a day after the polls in Jhargram.

“In the Lok Sabha polls of 2019, the BJP had led in three out of four Assembly segments in Jhargram. But we bagged all the four seats in the district, which was indeed a stellar show.... The chief minister was very impressed with the performance and we expect that the people of Jhargram will get the reward from her,” said a senior Trinamul leader in Jhargram.