"Is Mamata Upset With Me?" — How a Venue Change at a Tribal Conference Became India's Biggest Constitutional Row

There are political controversies, and then there are moments where politics collides with constitutional dignity in a way that shocks even seasoned observers. What happened in north Bengal on Saturday March 7, 2026 — at an international conference honouring the Santhal tribal community — falls squarely in the second category.

President Droupadi Murmu, the first tribal woman to hold India's highest constitutional office and herself a proud member of the Santhal community, arrived in Siliguri as chief guest for the 9th International Santhal Conference. What she found was a changed venue, empty seats, no Chief Minister, no state cabinet ministers, and a setting so poorly suited to the occasion that she publicly questioned — on the microphone, in front of the gathering — whether the state government actually wanted the welfare of India's tribal communities.

"Is Mamata upset with me?" she asked. "Mamata Banerjee is like my younger sister. I am also a daughter of Bengal. I do not know whether she is upset with me, which is why this happened. I have no grievance. But I wish her well."

In twenty-five words, the President of India publicly called out the Chief Minister of West Bengal for what she clearly regarded as a deliberate administrative slight — wrapped, with characteristic grace, in the language of familial affection. It is difficult to recall a recent moment in Indian constitutional history where the occupant of Rashtrapati Bhavan has spoken this candidly, this personally, and this pointedly from a public platform.

What Was Planned, and What Actually Happened

The 9th International Santhal Conference was organised by the Santhal community and scheduled to be held at a large open ground in Bidhannagar, Siliguri — an area with a significant Santhal population and a field spacious enough to host lakhs of attendees. The President had confirmed her attendance as chief guest. The date was fixed in advance, and preparations by the organising community had been underway.

Then the West Bengal state administration — citing security concerns and logistical reasons — refused permission for the Bidhannagar venue and shifted the event to Goshaipur (also reported as Gosainpur/Gossaipur), a location near Bagdogra Airport in Phansidewa block. The venue shift was reportedly not the first change — ABVP reported that the programme venue had to be changed four times before landing at Goshaipur.

The Goshaipur location proved dramatically unsuitable. Attendance was low. The seats were largely empty. Access from Siliguri and surrounding tribal villages was significantly harder than it would have been at Bidhannagar.

When President Murmu arrived, she was received not by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, not by any state cabinet minister, but by Siliguri Mayor Gautam Deb. The state's Governor could not attend because, as the President herself noted, the Governor had recently been transferred.

After addressing the gathering at Goshaipur, Murmu then visited the original Bidhannagar ground — and pointedly told attendees how much more space there was, how many more people could have attended, and how she did not understand why the state administration had not permitted the meeting there.

The President's Public Rebuke: Every Sentence Mattered

Murmu's remarks at the conference were unusually direct for a constitutional head whose role is conventionally ceremonial and scrupulously above partisan politics. Every line deserves careful reading.

On the venue: "Had the programme been held there (Bidhannagar), it would have been better. There is ample space there, and many people could have attended. But I do not know why the state administration did not permit the meeting there. Today's programme is being held at such a place that it is difficult for people to come."

On the turnout: "I don't think an international Santal conference is being held here. Seeing the vacant audience, I doubt the Santal community gets any government benefits."

On Mamata's absence: "Mamata Banerjee is like my younger sister. I am also a daughter of Bengal. I do not know whether she is upset with me and that is why the venue was shifted. Anyway, that does not matter. All of you stay well."

And most pointedly, on the political implication of the administrative choices: "I do not know whether the state administration wants the welfare of the tribals."

This last sentence — "I do not know whether the state administration wants the welfare of the tribals" — is the most constitutionally charged. It is not the language of a ceremonial president offering polite remarks. It is a pointed public indictment of a state government's priorities, delivered by the nation's first citizen, at a gathering of the very tribal community whose welfare was being questioned.

Mamata's Response: "This Is Political"

Mamata Banerjee, who remained in Kolkata to continue her sit-in protest against alleged voter roll deletions at Esplanade Metro Channel, was sharp in her response. She dismissed the President's remarks as "political," accusing the BJP of using the President's office to malign her government ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections.

She defended her absence on the grounds that she was engaged in protest activities against what she described as the arbitrary deletion of 63.66 lakh names from West Bengal's electoral rolls — a matter she has been agitating about since March 6. She advised the President against "indulging in politics."

Mamata also attributed the attribution of empty seats at the conference to BJP's "anti-Bengal" politics rather than to the venue shift, arguing that the conference was organised not by the state government but by an independent body, and that her government could not be held responsible for the organisers' arrangements.

The state administration cited security reasons and logistical concerns for the venue change — a justification that Murmu herself directly contradicted by visiting the Bidhannagar ground and demonstrating its capacity.

Modi: "Crossed All Limits"

Prime Minister Narendra Modi moved quickly. Sharing a video of Murmu's remarks on X, he posted: "The TMC Government of West Bengal has truly crossed all limits. Their administration is responsible for this insult to the President."

He described the situation as "shameful and unprecedented," saying that everyone who believed in democracy and the empowerment of tribal communities was disheartened by the pain and anguish expressed by a President who herself hails from a tribal community.

The BJP's response across the political ecosystem was coordinated and immediate. Senior party leaders described the episode as symptomatic of a "constitutional collapse" in West Bengal. The ABVP condemned what it called a "grave blow to the conscience of Indian democracy" and the Mamata government's "anti-tribal and anti-women character." Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi — whose state shares deep cultural and demographic ties with Santhal communities — tweeted that the denial and venue shift "cannot be dismissed as mere logistical issues" and had caused "deep anguish among the people of Odisha and the wider tribal community across India." He specifically invoked Murmu's personal journey "from Rairangpur to Rashtrapati Bhavan."

The Context: Protocol, the Santhal Community, and Bengal's Politics

To understand why this incident carries the political charge it does, three layers of context are essential.

Layer 1 — Protocol. Presidential visits to any state carry a well-established protocol: the Chief Minister (or, in their absence, the Deputy Chief Minister or a senior minister) is expected to be present to receive the President at the airport. This is not optional courtesy — it is constitutional convention. Multiple Chief Ministers across parties have faced criticism for not following this protocol, but full absence from an event at which the President is chief guest, with no ministerial representation at all, is genuinely unusual.

Layer 2 — The Santhal community. The Santhal are the third-largest Scheduled Tribe community in India, with a significant population concentrated in Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, and Bihar. President Murmu herself is Santhal — from Rairangpur, Mayurbhanj, Odisha, a region with a dense Santhal population. Her election to Rashtrapati Bhavan in 2022 was celebrated across Santhal communities as a historic milestone. The 9th International Santhal Conference was, in this context, not just any tribal event — it was a gathering of the community from which India's own Head of State hails, attending an event in her honour. Downgrading its venue, limiting attendance, and being absent from its reception line carries symbolism that goes beyond administrative inconvenience.

Layer 3 — Bengal's 2026 Assembly election backdrop. West Bengal is heading toward an election in a deeply polarised environment. The BJP, which made significant gains in the 2021 Assembly elections and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, is pursuing aggressive outreach to tribal and Scheduled Tribe voters across the state's north Bengal and Jungle Mahal regions — regions where Santhal and other tribal communities form a substantial share of the electorate. TMC, which has dominated Bengal's politics, is simultaneously battling BJP on the voter roll deletion issue and shoring up its own tribal voter base. In this context, every BJP statement framing the venue controversy as an "insult to tribals" is also a direct appeal to tribal voters in constituencies that could swing the 2026 election.

The Constitutional Dimension: Where Does This Leave Things?

The incident raises a question that is rarely asked openly in Indian political discourse: what happens when a state government and the President of India are in open, public disagreement about how a presidential visit was handled?

Constitutionally, the President's role in relation to state governments is supervisory and ceremonial, not executive. But the office carries a dignity and a convention of respect that state governments are expected to honour. When that respect is not forthcoming — whether due to political calculation, administrative incompetence, or both — the President has limited formal mechanisms to respond. What Murmu did on Saturday was deploy the one tool she actually has: the moral authority of the office, expressed in public, in her own voice.

The Centre has now sought answers. The Union Home Ministry sent a formal notice to the West Bengal government asking it to explain the protocol violation during President Murmu's visit, according to sources.

This escalation — from a public address to a formal Home Ministry notice — transforms the incident from a political controversy into a constitutional one. It gives BJP a legal and administrative hook to continue pressure on the Mamata government in the months leading to the Assembly election, while forcing TMC to defend its administrative decisions in writing rather than merely in press conferences.

The Santhal Conference Itself: Lost in the Political Storm

In the noise of the political controversy, the actual substance of the 9th International Santhal Conference — its focus on Santhal heritage, indigenous rights, education, and historical figures like freedom fighters Sidhu, Kanhu, and Tilka Majhi — has been almost entirely drowned out.

This is, perhaps, the saddest dimension of the episode. A community that has struggled for generations for recognition of its language, culture, and rights organised an international conference to celebrate that heritage. India's own Head of State — a Santhal woman who reached Rashtrapati Bhavan from a tribal village in Odisha — came to honour them. And the event that should have been a celebration of tribal identity and aspiration became, instead, a political battlefield.

The empty seats at Goshaipur were not just logistical inconvenience. They were Santhal families who could not get to a venue that the administration had made deliberately inaccessible. The missing lakhs who would have filled Bidhannagar are not a BJP talking point — they are real people who wanted to attend their community's international conference and were prevented from doing so by a venue change they had no say in.

Whatever the politics, that is the real story of March 7, 2026 in north Bengal.

Key Takeaways

• President Droupadi Murmu arrived at the 9th International Santhal Conference in Siliguri as chief guest on March 7, 2026, only to find the venue shifted from the spacious Bidhannagar ground to a small, poorly accessible site at Goshaipur near Bagdogra Airport.
• CM Mamata Banerjee and no state cabinet minister were present to receive the President; only Siliguri Mayor Gautam Deb welcomed her.
• Murmu publicly questioned the venue shift, noted the empty seats, and said she didn't know "whether the state administration wants the welfare of tribals" — one of the sharpest public rebukes ever delivered from a presidential platform.
• She called Mamata her "younger sister" and said "I do not know whether she is upset with me" — restrained language that nonetheless placed full accountability on the state government.
• Mamata called the President's remarks "political," defended her absence citing her voter roll deletion protest, and accused BJP of misusing the presidential office before elections.
• PM Modi called the episode "shameful and unprecedented" and said TMC had "crossed all limits."
• Odisha CM Mohan Majhi, ABVP, and multiple BJP leaders condemned the venue change as an "insult to tribals."
• Union Home Ministry sent a formal notice to the West Bengal government seeking explanation for the protocol breach — escalating the controversy from political to constitutional.
• The incident is widely read as having significant implications for tribal and Scheduled Tribe voters in north Bengal and Jungle Mahal ahead of the 2026 Assembly election.