The Opposition parties in Bengal seem to have decided to take the first mover’s advantage and file as many nominations as possible for the July 8 panchayat polls by next Tuesday, with the ruling Trinamul unlikely to join the process before June 13.

Sources in both the BJP and the CPM, which is contesting the polls in an alliance with the Congress, said they had decided to finish the nomination-filing process quickly to avoid a 2018-like situation when the rural polls had been marred by large-scale violence.

“In 2018, filing of nominations was very difficult as we faced resistance at every stage.... As Trinamul is yet to announce its candidates’ lists, its local and rural leaders are busy lobbying with their high command for tickets. That gives us a chance to file our nominations,” a CPM state committee member said.

In the 2018 panchayat polls, Trinamul had won 40-50 per cent of the rural body seats uncontested and the percentage was more than 80 in districts like Birbhum.

According to CPM sources, the party has filed 15 to 20 per cent nominations across the three tiers of the panchayati raj system in the first two days despite the delays due to administrative bottlenecks at BDO offices and alleged attacks by Trinamul.

“We will try to file as many nominations as possible before the Trinamul cadres start crowding the BDO offices,” a source said.

Although the BJP leadership is leaving no stone unturned to highlight how the Trinamul machinery is preventing its candidates from filing nominations, it has also decided to wrap up the paperwork for the polls before the ruling party enters the field.

Sources in the BJP said that in districts like Bankura, East Burdwan, Birbhumand Purulia, the party has already completed filingnominations in at least 15 per cent of the seats.

Sources in the BJP and the CPM said their performance in terms of filing nominations over the first two days had been satisfactory in view of their past experience. “This doesn’t mean that the process has been smooth.... Our candidates faced resistance in multiple places, but not on the scale that we had witnessed in 2018,” said a BJP source.

He pointed out that the BJP’s state leaders had met the governor to highlight the problems party nominees were facing while filing nominations.

“There cannot be any tolerable level of violence or intimidation. Even if a single candidate is prevented from filing nomination, that’s a vitiation of the poll process. We have reported all the incidents to the governor,” a BJP source said.

The off-the-record comments of Opposition leaders suggest that Trinamul national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee’s message of “free and fair polls” may have had some trickle-down effect.

“There may have been some localised problems and one person has lost his life, but the nomination-filing process has been much smoother for the Opposition parties in comparison to 2018,” said a Trinamul source.

“In the past two days, all those who have filed nomination papers are mostly from the Opposition parties, yet they are crying violence. Actually, it is a conspiracy to show that there is a law-and-order crisis,” Trinamul spokesperson Kunal Ghosh said on Saturday.