The Trinamul Congress leadership has brought about a number of significant changes in the party’s Malda district committee by inducting a number of old and new leaders.

The move, observers said, is an attempt to pass a message of inclusiveness across the tiers of the party ahead of the Assembly elections and also try to strike a balance among rival lobbies.

Sources in the party said Subrata Bakshi, the state Trinamul chief, and some other leaders had held a meeting with core committee members of Malda district Trinamul in Calcutta on Friday. Six of the eight core committee members were present at the meeting.

During the talks, it was decided to put Krishnendu Narayan Choudhury, a former state minister, in the post of the chairman of the district committee, instead of Moazzem Hossain. Hossain, who is also a core committee member, has been offered the post of a vice-president.

Nihar Ranjan Ghosh, the Englishbazar MLA who joined Trinamul four years ago and is an arch political rival of Choudhury, was included in the core committee.

“The party has also decided to nominate Sabina Yeasmin, the MLA of Mothabari and Hemanta Sharma, a close aide to district party chief Mausam Noor as two new coordinators of district Trinamul. Their inclusion has increased the number of coordinators to five,” said a source.

While talking to the state leaders, Noor, who is also a Rajya Sabha member, had reportedly told them that she intended to discontinue as the district president.

“She was, however, asked to continue in the post until the Assembly elections are over,” the source added.

So far, Trinamul’s performance in the Assembly polls has been poor in the district. Also, the surge in BJP’s support base in the past couple of years came up as yet another concern for the party. Till now, Mamata Banerjee’s party won only one Assembly seat (in 2011), and that too, with the Congress’s support.

In the 2016 polls, the party could not win even one seat in the district even though Malda has over 50 per cent minority population, a vote bank that has always helped Trinamul.

Although Choudhury, the former minister, remained reticent about his new responsibility and said the reshuffle-proposal would be confirmed by Mamata Banerjee, his arch rival Ghosh and his supporters thanked the chief minister for his inclusion in the core committee.