At present, eight Bengal districts are included under the(AAKS) project: Cooch behar, Nadia, North Dinajpur, Darjeeling, Malda, North 24 Parganas, Murshidabad and West Midnapur. These are areas that were once Congress strongholds and Mitra is touring them along with other youth Congress workers. For instance, they visited Lalgarh in West Midnapore, from where she filed a report on tribal unrest and how the state government had neglected the area. A copy of the report was sent to Rahul Gandhi and the apparently its impact has been such that a high-powered central team is scheduled to visit the tribal areas of the three districts of West Midnapur, Bankura and Purulia next week. In January, Mitra conducted a workshop on NREGA in Phansideoa block in Darjeeling after which thousands of fresh applications for NREGA work were submitted to the local panchayat office.

The Congress may be happy with Mitra’s success but the Left is dismissive of her efforts. “I am not aware that such an initiative is being taken by Congress here. I do not know why she (Mitra) is going to illages. It might just be political gimmick,” said Ashu Ghosh, a district CPI-M leader.