West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee to visit Jangalmahal again

KOLKATA: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee will visit Jangalmahal after the festive season to examine the progress her government has achieved in implementing the special packages for the tribals. She will also hold talks with senior district police officials to get an idea about the Maoist activities in the region.

This will be Banerjee's second visit to the Maoist-hit Jangalmahal after she became the chief minister. She had visited the region in July this year and announced a number of development packages for the tribals and local residents which included recruitment of 10,000 local youths in the state police force.

The Maoists in Jangalmahal had recently held a few open meetings in Jhargram and asked the local youths not to collect application forms for police jobs as promised by the chief minister. The red ultras, though lost their influence in the region in the last few months, had threatened the youths with dire consequences once they apply for police jobs.

Officials in the state administrative headquarters of Writers' Buildings are well aware of this development. It is learnt that some of them had informed the chief minister about the Maoists plan to thwart her move to recruit 10,000 local youths from Jangalmahal in the police forces. Chief minister is unhappy with the Maoists gameplan and has reportedly asked the senior state police officials to speed up the process of recruiting Jangalmahal youths in the police forces.