Congress workers are not on the same page with ally Left on seat-sharing in Murshidabad and are protesting against the party’s own candidate list in Malda.

In Murshidabad, the Congress and the Left were to field nominees in 17 and five seats, but in two of 22 seats, the alliance has come unstuck over political differences. Samserganj will see nominees from both allies. Nowda will see a Congress nominee and a Left-backed Independent candidate.

In Malda, Congress workers have demanded that candidates of Ratua and Mothabari seats be replaced.

In Murshidabad, the Left had fielded Modassar Hossain in Samserganj seat that it had won in 2016. However, sources said local Congress leaders opined that as their party had secured a lead in the Assembly segment in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, they would field their candidate Rezaul Haque.

“As of now, both sides have started their campaign. Talks are on (for a truce) but none of the parties is ready to back off,” said a Congress insider.

In Nowda, the Congress fielded Mosharraf Hossain Mondal, the sabhadhipati of Trinamul-run Murshidabad Zilla Parishad. A few weeks back, Mondal joined the Congress but is yet to resign from the sabhadhipati’s post.

This decision angered local CPM leaders who announced the name of Samik Mondal, a local leader, as a Left-backed Independent candidate.

CPM leaders said they did not endorse the move of the local party leaders and had expelled Mondal and another local leader Gorachand Ghosh from the party. However, local CPM leaders are unrepentant in their defiance.

“All the local leaders and party workers are with us and we will contest against the Congress as it fielded a candidate who even a few months back had tortured our workers,” Ghosh said.

On Monday, hundreds of party supporters had demonstrated for three hours in front of the ancestral house of the Khan Choudhury family (descendants of late Congress stalwart A.B.A. Ghani Khan Choudhury), who are still at the helm of the Congress in the district, in Kotowali on the outskirts of Malda town. Protesters demanded the candidate of the Ratua Assembly seat, Najema Khatun, be changed.

On Tuesday, Congress workers assembled in front of the district party office, demanding that Mohammad Dulal Sheikh, the candidate of Mothabari seat, should be replaced. Some later went to the block Congress office in Kaliachak and ransacked it. Police reached the spot and brought the situation under control.

The protests, Congress sources said, prompted the district leaders to convene an internal meeting on Wednesday. “We will listen to our party workers’ grievances and resolve them at the meeting,” said Kalisadhan Roy, the working president of the Congress in Malda.