Rice at Rs 2 a kg in West Bengal’s Junglemahal belt hasn’t quite alleviated the privation of the people. Though the Chief Minister was riveted to the appalling conditions in the fledgling district of Jhargram ~ and not the overall basketcase of poverty in West Midnapore, Bankura, and Purulia ~ the subtext of her message at this week’s public meetings is that the volatile region still wallows in the mire, though Maoist activity may have been contained.

The creation of a new district, therefore, has so far had little or no impact on the quality of administration. The striking feature of her presentations on Tuesday and Wednesday must be that she has used a public gathering to haul over the coals at least one minister ~ evaluated as nonperforming ~ and even effect a decidedly unusual administrative reshuffle.

In the net, the state minister for backward classes, Churamani Mahato, and the District Magistrate, R Arjun, were targeted in the presence of the local populace. Also in the line of fire was the forest department for its failure to control the movement of tuskers ~ a task of wildlife conservationists and not generalists. On closer reflection, both inner-party politics and “below-par performance” would appear to have done Mahato in. Notably, Mamata Banerjee’s sniper attack on the minister followed his recent meeting with Mukul Roy and has doubtless brought matters to a head. Thus did the CM emit a signal to potential renegades in the Trinamul Congress that they are doomed to a similar fate if they interact with Roy.

Not that Mahato has been removed from the ministry or that his portfolio has been changed; the action has been taken at the party level. He has been replaced as the party’s president in Jhargram by the district president of West Midnapore.

It is hard not to wonder whether Mahato has had to pay for being a Roy loyalist; arguably his performance as a minister of state might well be secondary in the overall construct. Appropriately, the matter ought to have been thrashed out within the four walls of the party office, unless the intention was to denude the district Trinamul president in a public echo chamber.

The changes in Jhargram’s administration have bamboozled the bureaucracy as a whole. In a quirky initiative to “streamline” operations, the district will now boast two DMs, with the incumbent playing second fiddle to the West Midnapore DM, Jagdeesh Meena, who has been given additional charge of Jhargram.

The Chief Minister may have good reason to be dissatisfied with Arjun’s performance, but was it really necessary to post one DM above another in the same district? Perhaps anticipating that eyebrows would be raised, the CM has instructed the Chief Secretary to oversee the implementation of targets.

It remains to be seen if Jhargram or indeed Junglemahal will benefit from such quick-fix initiatives.