The Trinamul Congress has deviated from its usual practice of publishing candidate lists amid fanfare and instead, leaders are privately asking panchayat poll nominees to file papers in order to avoid rebellion by those denied candidature and minimise the number of dissidents in the fray.
A source in the ruling party said although leaders in a handful of the 20 districts going to the polls, such as Cooch Behar and East Burdwan, officially announced the names of zilla parishad candidates, nobody had yet shown the courage to publish the lists containing the names of thousands of nominees for panchayat samitis and the gram panchayats.
“The party got bigger and bigger and that is why the number of ticket aspirants is about six times more than the 74,000-odd seats. So, the predicament faced by those handling the tickets is quite obvious. The leadership of most of the districts has been asked to keep the process of list preparation and nomination filing low-key,” said a senior Trinamul leader.
Trinamul is this time preparing candidate lists based on the recommendations from district leaders and national general-secretary Abhishek Banerjee’s office and the names that emerged during the internal elections conducted during his statewide outreach drive.
The party has also decided to delay the process of filing nomination papers to lower the number of disgruntled ticket aspirants who may contest as Independents.
The district units started receiving the lists of official candidates and the party symbols against the name of each of them on Tuesday evening and they were instructed to start filing nominations on Wednesday. Unless there is an eleventh-hour extension, Thursday is the final day for filing nominations.
The ploy did backfire in several pockets after the district leaders started receiving lists of the candidates comprising 60-90 per cent new names.
A group of Trinamul workers from Nanoor and Khoirasole held an agitation at the Birbhum district party office in Bolpur till midnight on Tuesday, demanding candidature. The problem was solved after a few rounds of discussions with senior leaders.
In Birbhum, out of 52 seats in the zilla parishad, the ruling establishment has fielded 45 new faces, including Sheikh Kajal who replaced Kerim Khan. Khan is an incumbent functionary and a close aide to the party’s Birbhum strongman Anubrata Mondal, incarcerated in Delhi in connection with a cattle-rustling case.
Bikash Roy Chowdhury, chairman of Trinamul’s coordination committee formed by chief minister Mamata Banerjee to handle party affairs in the absence of Mondal, said the list of candidates was sent to the block leaders for further communication.
“We did not officially publish our candidate lists. We had sent the lists to respective block presidents, who communicated with the candidates,” said Roy Chowdhury.
Like in Birbhum, the new candidates' nomination caused trouble in districts like Bankura, Jhargram, Cooch Behar, and Jalpaiguri. A source said most of those candidates who were denied tickets had already decided to contest as Independents.
In Jhargram, there are 17 new faces for 19 zilla parishad seats.