Around 300 Trinamul functionaries and over 100 “official” party candidates for the July 8 rural polls on Monday hit the streets in East Burdwan’s Raina, accusing the senior leadership of distributing party symbols to those who filed nominations without making it to the official list.

“The party has published a list of 144 candidates in Raina II block on June 15, the last day of nomination. We waited till we got the official list and then filed nomination papers in all 144 seats. Now, senior party leaders have decided to provide party symbols to at least 70 candidates whose names were not on the official list and had filed nominations as dissidents. This is unacceptable,” said Asim Pal, Trinamul’s Raina II unit chief, who led Monday’s protest.

Pal and his followers said they would get nominations of all 144 official candidates withdrawn on Tuesday, the last day of withdrawals, if the party did not alter its stand.

A source in Trinamul said the conflict is the result of Trinamul’s infighting between one group headed by local Trinamul MLA Shampa Dhara and another block president Pal. Trinamul has been facing trouble after names of most candidates proposed by MLA Dhara were dropped from the official list.

Monday’s incident is the latest example of the challenge the ruling Trinamul has been facing in multiple districts since its leaders started reaching out to 11,930 dissidents, requesting them to withdraw their nominations. A source said dissidents have been a worry for ruling Trinamul, as they form 16 per cent of the total 73,887 rural body seats across Bengal.

Trinamul chairperson Mamata Banerjee had on Saturday requested dissidents to withdraw their nominations. During an internal meeting of Trinamul at her Kalighat residence, she made it clear that rebels won’t be taken back into the party fold even if they won.

“Around 2,000 such candidates have withdrawn their nomination papers till Monday after Mamata Banerjee's instruction. We have only Tuesday, the last day of withdrawal, to reduce the number of rebel Independents,” said a Trinamul source.

A Trinamul leader in East Burdwan said differences between local and district leaders, and MLAs have been creating trouble for the party ahead of the rural polls. In Raina II block, over 240 Trinamul candidates filed nomination papers against its 144 official seats. The Trinamul insider said party feuds over filing nominations allowed the CPM to bag two seats uncontested in Raina.

The CPM's Ismail Mollah and Sabita Mathur won uncontested.

“Can you believe Trinamul couldn’t field a candidate in a rural body seat? It is a bitter truth in Raina because of the party’s infighting. The two rural body seats out of 74,000-odd will not have any impact, but it is an example of lack of coordination” said the Trinamul leader.

CPM leader Apurba Chattopadhyay claimed they won the two seats because of organisational strength.

Rabindranath Chatterjee, Trinamul district chief, said he was trying to resolve deadlocks through dialogue.

“We had to issue the candidate list on the last day of filing nominations because of differences of opinion between the MLA and block leaders. We are trying to solve the issue by talking to both camps,” he said.

Nandigram trouble

Trinamul leaders in Nandigram faced a fresh agitation by a group of rebels on Monday who agitated in the local party office, accusing the party’s senior leaders of providing party symbols even after they were informed as official nominees. On Monday, Trinamul workers headed by the chief of Daudpur gram panchayat gheraoed Nandigram block president Bappaditya Garg, demanding party symbols for his followers.

Additional reporting byAnshuman Phadikar