Trinamul Congress leadership in East Midnapore has begun a search for a temporary address for Mamata Banerjee in Nandigram from where she is likely to contest in the Assembly polls.

The chief minister herself announced her desire to contest from Nandigram, the site of her anti-land acquisition protest, during a January 18 mega rally in Tekhali as she threw the gauntlet down at former aide Suvendu Adhikari who defected to the BJP in December.

Sources said her candidature in Nandigram was likely to be confirmed by the state Trinamul leadership later this week before the beginning of the nomination filing window of March 5-12.

As Mamata always contested from seats in Calcutta, she never needed a temporary address in the poll season. For Nandigram, around 140km from Calcutta, she would, however, need a place to put up and reach out to voters.

“Didi will be going across the state for Trinamul candidates, but she will be coming to Nandigram several times for her own campaign.… We have to have a place ready for her so that she can stay here during her visits,” said Abu Taher, deputy chief of Nandigram panchayat samiti.

Multiple Trinamul sources said the hunt for a temporary accommodation for Mamata, who didn’t leave the family’s modest home on 30B Harish Chatterjee Street in Calcutta even after becoming the chief minister, is a challenge as she prefers a spartan lifestyle and is averse to display of luxury in her personal space. Besides, security protocols for the chief minister, who will have an entourage during her stay in Nandigram, added to the degree of difficulty in zeroing in on a place for Mamata.

Taher said the party had short-listed four buildings in and around Nandigram town and started paying temporary leases for two of them.

“We have short-listed four buildings of different types — at Nandigram town, Reyapara, Battola and Dinabandhupur. These four buildings will be used for the chief minister and her entourage during her stay in Nandigram,” he said while adding that they were creating provision for the stay of 50 to 100 people.

Although there was no confirmation on which of the four would be used as Mamata’s temporary address, sources in the East Midnapore district party unit as well as residents of the area said on Tuesday that the residence at the town seemed to have caught the leaders’ eyes.

“State Trinamul president Subrata Bakshi and MP Dola Sen have been coming here frequently since mid-January and this house is the one they have frequented most,” said a resident of Nandigram town, pointing to a pink two-storey building with four separate flats ranging between 600sqft and 1,000sqft.

Contacted by this newspaper, homeowner Sheikh Rajab, a school teacher, said: “The party has leased two flats from me for two months. The smaller one upstairs may be used by Mamata Banerjee whereas her detail will use a flat downstairs.”

“I told Trinamul leaders that they could pay whatever rent they want to. I even had my wife clear out her office downstairs for the time being,” he added, explaining that the average monthly rent of one flats was Rs, 4,000.

Senior Trinamul leader and zilla parishad deputy chief Sheikh Sufian confirmed the party’s interest in the building, saying its location and layout were “perfect” for the chief minister.

“Our leaders Subrata Bakshi and Dola Sen inspected several properties in the area over a month and were finally satisfied with two in particular,” he added.

The other property is a community hall at Battola with accommodation on the second-storey. This property has also reportedly been rented out for two months.

Sources said both the properties would fall within a 3km radius of the proposed helipad for the chief minister at the Nandigram College Grounds.

“The final confirmation, however, will lie with the chief minister’s security detail who will visit the buildings after the announcement of her candidature. The decision will be made solely on safety grounds,” said a source.