Trinamul in Birbhum finally opted for a collected leadership instead of selecting a new block president as a replacement of slain Dipak Ghosh, who was shot dead in an alleged factional feud to control illegal coal mining.

Anubrata Mondal, the district Trinamul chief, on Sunday formed a nine-member committee headed by the sabhadhipati of Birbhum zilla parishad, Bikash Roy Chowdhury, and local MLA Naresh Bauri to avoid further murders of party leaders.

“The committee will look after the party’s organisation in Khoirasol,” Mondal said after a party meeting at Gitanjali auditorium in Bolpur.

Khoriasol is the only block among 19 in Birbhum which will not have a Trinamul president ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

Dipak Ghosh was shot dead allegedly by his rival faction while he was on his way to inaugurate a football tournament on October 21. He was the third block president to be killed in the past five years, including his elder brother Ashok Ghosh.

In Khoirasol, two major Trinamul factions are active — one was led by Dipak Ghosh and the other by Abdur Hoque Kaderi, the working block president in Khoirasol. Names of Kaderi’s two brothers and several followers were included in the FIR lodged after Ghosh’s murder by his wife.

Trinamul insiders said there were two reasons for the decision on the collective leadership.

First, the party understood that there are deep cracks within the organisation over spoils of illegal coal mining in an area bereft of any major employment opportunities. Second, a new block president may face a threat to his life which would tarnish the Trinamul’s image.

A district official said the major law and order problem in the area was due to feud between Trinamul factions over controlling the abandoned coalmines of Eastern Coalfields Limited (ECL) where rampant mining is taking place despite repeated warnings by chief minister Mamata Banerjee.

In the newly set up committee, most members are known as followers of the slain block president Dipak Ghosh, including Ghosh’s nephew Biswajit Ghosh.

At Sunday’s meeting the Birbhum party chief Mondal asked sabhadhipati Roy Chowdhury to ask the police to arrest Kaderi describing him as the mastermind behind using crude bombs in Khoirasol.

“Bikash da achhe? Kaderi ke arrest korte bolo. Okhankar bomb marar nayak Kaderi (Bikash da are you three?

Ask (the police) to arrest Kaderi who is the mastermind of hurling bombs in the area).