Four victorious candidates of Krishnachandrapur panchayat at Mathurapur in South 24-Parganas were allegedly abducted by Trinamul-backed people from a rented accommodation in Calcutta's Panchasayar area on Thursday where they had taken shelter apparently to escape the ruling party's pressure to switch over and help form the board.

The four allegedly abducted panchayat members — two from the CPM, one from the BJP and an Independent — were staying with four others, who had also won from the same panchayat, at the rented accommodation off EM Bypass near Peerless Hospital.

Anup Mistry, one of the CPM candidates who escaped the abduction, said: "Trinamul's youth wing leader Bapi Halder and his aides were threatening us to join Trinamul or to face the consequence. We refused to succumb to the pressure and all winning Opposition candidates, including Independents, decided to remain together. We had been taking shelter at various places, including the one at Panchasayar, to escape the possibility of attack and abduction."

Mistry said on the night of July 25, he, along with seven other winning candidates, had come to Calcutta to take shelter at the rented accommodation However, around 11.30 pm on Thursday, Halder and his cohorts arrived in four cars and dragged four candidates who were resting on the terrace and took them away.

Paramita Pramanik, also an Independent member of the panchayat who was huddled in a room along with Mistry and two others, said: "Somehow the Bapi Halder and his goons missed to locate us. They dragged out those sleeping on the terrace and left with them."

CPM leader Kanti Ganguly, who had rushed to the spot after learning about the incident, said the four allegedly abducted candidates — Puja Chhatui, Kamala Mondal, Susanta Mondal and Narayan Halder — still remain untraced.

Ganguly accused the police of being hand-in-glove with the Trinamul goons who executed the "abduction".

He said they had submitted a complaint with Panchsayar police station but it had not been officially accepted.

The former minister said the Trinamul leader Halder and at least 30 unidentified others abducted the four panchayat members.

Though this newspaper made several attempts to seek the response of the police, senior officers refused to respond.

Trinamul leadership, however, rejected Ganguly's claim and termed it as a "poorly enacted drama".

"The CPM has lost the plot and the abduction claim is a poorly executed dram by Ganguly," a leader of Trinamul's South 24-Parganas district committee said.