Mamata Banerjee will undertake a three-day trip to Jhargram from Tuesday and flag off the World Tribal Day celebrations there on Wednesday.

The state government has decided to observe with much fanfare this year’s World Tribal Day or International Day for the World’s Indigenous Peoples. The day is observed on August 9 every year.

The chief minister will inaugurate the statewide celebrations at the Jhargram Stadium on Wednesday. Besides district-level programmes, every block in 15 Adivasi-dominated districts will organise separate events to mark the occasion. Mamata will reach Jhargram on Tuesday morning by helicopter and is slated to return to Calcutta on Thursday afternoon.

A source has said the chief minister’s visit to Jhargram, which has a significant tribal population, assumes significance in the wake of the Trinamul Congress’s decision to pitch the Manipur violence as an issue to corner the BJP in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. The indigenous Kuki people are targeted by the majority Meitei community in Manipur.

“Her visit to Jhargram this time is significant both as a chief minister and a political leader. She will inaugurate several projects for the tribal people and announce her government’s next plan for the welfare of the community. In addition, the chief minister is likely to tell the tribal people of Bengal how their Kuki brethren in Manipur are being targeted,” said a senior Trinamul leader.

The district magistrates of 15 districts, including Purulia, Bankura, West Midnapore and Birbhum in south Bengal and Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, North Dinajpur and Malda in north Bengal, have been asked to make arrangements to virtually connect with the Jhargram programme.

Departments like agriculture, rural development and horticulture were asked to select members of tribal communities as beneficiaries of welfare schemes and invite them to Mamata’s dias and the venues in all blocks of the 15 districts.

The source said from Jhargram, Mamata would inaugurate at least two dozen new development projects in Adivasi-dominated areas across the state and distribute Scheduled Tribe certificates to the Adivasis.

The Trinamul establishment, multiple sources said, has decided to focus more on the tribal-dominated areas in view of the impending Lok Sabha polls. The BJP had bagged 12 of 13 seats in the tribal-dominated areas in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.