Chief minister Mamata Banerjee might turn up in one or more venues in Malda where her party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee will attend public meetings or mass contact events during the ongoing statewide outreach, hinted senior party functionaries on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, Mamata will reach Malda on a three-day visit. She is scheduled to attend an administrative review meeting of the district the next day.

On Wednesday, Abhishek will from South Dinajpur enter Malda, his fifth district to cover through the ongoing Sanjog Yatra. He will speak in two public meetings, hold talks with party leaders, join road shows, visit religious places and personally interact with people.

Reportedly, Abhishek will head for Murshidabad district on May 4.

“The chief minister will be in Malda for three days during which Abhishek Banerjee will be in the district for a bulk of the time for the outreach. There is a good chance that she will visit one or more venues of (Abhishek's) public meetings to check out the turnout and impact, and jointly address the gathering,” said a party leader.

Sanjog Yatra, along with Grambanglar Motamot, is a part of Bengal's ruling party initiative, Trinamul-ey Nobojowar, to try and galvanise the party's support base ahead of rural polls this year. It is also being seen as the party's warm-up exercise ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

“The statewide drive is important and our party supremo will surely want a ground assessment on its effectiveness,” the leader added.

In north Bengal, Malda, a district with 52 per cent minority population, two parliamentary seats and 12 Assembly seats, has always been on the radar of political forces.

In 2018, Trinamul managed a decent panchayat election victory in Malda. In the next year’s Lok Sabha polls, the BJP and Congress bagged the two seats. In the 2021 Assembly polls, Trinamul won eight seats and the BJP four.

“The BJP has played the polarisation card here, and the Congress and the Left are now working together to revive their support base. Hence, the Malda outreach is crucial for Trinamul at present,” said a party leader in Malda.

Sabitri Mitra, a veteran Trinamul MLA of the district, said that the possibility of both Mamata and Abhishek "in a single venue" in Malda would "mean a lot to our supporters here”.