Trinamul workers owing allegiance to Durgapur Municipal Corporation chairman Mrigendra Nath Pal on Friday allegedly refused to allow a programme to felicitate mayor Dilip Agasty on the occasion of International Mother Language Day, bringing the never ending intra-party squabble here to fore.

To observe International Mother Language Day, Shilpa-O-Sahitya, a literary organisation, had organised a programme on Friday at the civic body’s open air dais Sukanta Mancha at the Durgapur Steel Plant township.

Mayor Agasty was among the invitees and the organisation had decided to felicitate him for his effort to highlight Bengali language in Durgapur.

Invitation cards for the event had been distributed.

However on Thursday, Trinamul workers allegedly close to Pal told the organisers that the open-air dais was not available for the programme. Pal is the local councillor and custodian of the dais.

“We were shocked but didn’t question the decision as we wanted to avoid politics in our programme. We hurriedly constructed a makeshift dais near the venue to hold the event,” said Rajib Ghanti, founder secretary of the organisation.

However mayor became angry when he came to know about the incident. He called up Pal and got involved into a spat over phone in the presence of everyone.

He later said this incident had maligned the image of the civic body. “Such incident is not welcome when we all are asked to work together. It is an insult to the entire civic body and I will report the incident to my higher ups in the party,” said Agasty.

Pal, however, denied his involvement in the incident.

He accused the mayor of mentally harassing him in the party as well as in the civic body.

“Mayor is considering me as his enemy and rival in the party. He has withdrawn my car provided by the civic body for my use without any notice. He is mentally harassing me publicly. However I have no idea about what happened over the use of the dais as I’m in Calcutta now,” he said.

Pal was also among the invitees at the programme but sources said he avoided it.