Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday requested around 12,000 Trinamul dissidents, who have filed nominations as Independents to contest the July 8 rural polls, to withdraw their nominations.

The plea, made during an internal meeting at her Kalighat residence, captured the Trinamul chief’s concern about grassroots discontent with the party’s official nominees.

“Mamata Banerjee has requested the Independents to withdraw their nomination papers. It is a written instruction from her,” said Kalyan Banerjee, the Trinamul MP from Hooghly’s Serampore, after attending the meeting that was chaired by Mamata, in the presence of the party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.

The message to the Trinamul-turned-Independents also had a veiled threat. The MP, who was representing the state in the case on the deployment of central forces for the rural polls, said that those who would stay in the fray even after a request from Mamata would continue as Independent for the rest of their political careers.

“She (Mamata) has said she would ensure that the party would take care of their (those who have filed nominations as Independents) issues, demands, or pains (following the denial of the party ticket), if any. The process of scrutiny was over today and the names of the official nominees became clear. So, we request all (Trinamul functionaries contesting as Independents) with folded hands to withdraw their nomination papers by June 20,” added the MP.

In a first-of-its-kind move, the party has also formed a 50-member team, who would visit the districts over the next few days to convince the Independents to opt out of the July 8 contest by withdrawing their nominations before June 20, the last date for withdrawal of nominations.

In the past, the Trinamul used to induct Independents back into the party fold once they emerged victorious in the hustings, which, a source said, was the reason behind why so many party functionaries, who did not make it to the official list, entered the fray as Independents.

This time, additional 11,930 “Trinamul” candidates across Bengal filed their nominations over and above the official nominees for 73,887 rural body seats across Bengal.

A Trinamul source said the number is worrying for the ruling party as these candidates are likely to make the contest more intense.

“This time the ruling dispensation has brought 60-90 per cent new faces in their candidate lists for the rural polls. The challenge is that most of the dissidents are current incumbents of different rural bodies.... So, it is important to ensure the Independents withdraw their nominations,” said the source.

The surge in such nominations is worrying for another reason as Abhishek, during his two-month-long outreach drive, repeatedly warned party functionaries to steer clear of such “misadventures”.

“This means that his message that the party would not take back the Independents did not have much impact and it is worrying,” said another source.

A source said Hooghly and Murshidabad are the two districts with the maximum number of rebel candidates, followed by Birbhum and Bankura.

The problem of party dissidents contesting as Independents, however, is not unique to the Trinamul. A source said that thousands of BJP dissidents are contesting as Independents across all three tiers.

The BJP’s chief spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya, however, said it was a calculated strategy because Trinamul would inevitably try to coerce many candidates to withdraw their nominations.

“We have filed multiple nominations to ensure we have backup nominees,” he said.

Biswanath Chakraborty, a political scientist in Calcutta, said the practice of filing nominations as Independents is not new in Bengal politics.

“It is not that all those who are filing nominations as Independents are rebels... There have been instances when a ruling party has asked more than one candidate to file nominations as there have been multiple ticket aspirants. This gives them some extra time, till the scrutiny, to negotiate with the aspirants and convince them to opt out... In case of Opposition, they usually file multiple nominations to avoid the chance of forcible withdrawals,” said Chakraborty.