Just after 38 days, the Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee was back to this tribal heartland of Bengal, where she tried to woo the tribal voters, besides insisting the Junglemahal residents to remain on high alert about the intruders those, according to her: “Are trying to breach the tranquillity and peace of the life of jungle residents.”

She said, “Once gunpowder used to rule this Junglemahal, which our government has tamed down.” She was referring to the Maoist terror which once reigned in Bankura, Purulia, West Midnapore forest patches. The Trinamul Congress-led state government had kicked off ‘Operation Greenhunt’ and killed Maoist lieutenant Koteswar Rao alias Kisanji. The Maoist squads had killed at least two dozen LF leaders since 2001 after local tribal community members were lured up by the ultra-Left cadres.

Mamata Banerjee, on 28 February, too tried to alert the undercover movement in Junglemahal. This time, she however referred to the saffron party.

Mamata Banerjee was campaigning for her party candidates Arup Chakraborty for Bankura seat and Sujata Mondal for Bishnupur seat. Dr Subhas Sarkar, the BJP candidate against Chakraborty has a long-term practice of visiting the remote Junglemahal localities where he shouldered opening of Sangh Parivar governed schools for the minors. Mamata suspect, the bid was part of saffron aggression. She said: “We’ve given respect and honour to the tribal people. We’ve protected the sanctity of your Zaherthan (worship place). We’ve introduced Adivasi Mela, our government has taken initiatives to give official recognition to Sari and Sarna path of religious beliefs sincerely.”

Santhals of Bankura, Purulia, Hooghly, twin Burdwans practice Sari Dharam, but their counterparts in Jharkhand and Chhatisgarh have declared themselves as followers of Sarna dharam. On 19 November, 2021, the Jharkhand Assembly had passed a resolution seeking inclusion of Sarna as a separate religion. Banerjee said today: “We’ve set to gear up mass movement if Sari and Sarna are not given separate religious status.”

Raipur falls under Khatra sub-division, where her party had lost support in 2019 general election to the BJP but her party had won three Assembly seats in 2021 election out of Trinamul Congress’s aggregate success of mere four seats in Bankura district.