India, April 24 -- West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday told state ministers that they should be more proactive on the ground, citing the recent communal violence in Murshidabad, people familiar with the matter said.

"The chief minister said MLAs and ministers should reach out to all people and stay by them round the year. A people's representative, she said, has no religion or class of his own," a person aware of the matter said, citing Banerjee's remarks at a meeting of the state cabinet.

Banerjee also lamented that some MLAs made irresponsible statements in recent months, and stressed that the Murshidabad violence would never have reached such a scale if Trinamool Congress (TMC) legislators and MPs played their rol...