Murder cases against several Trinamul Congress leaders, withdrawn previously by the Mamata Banerjee government but reopened by judicial intervention brought on by a BJP candidate recently, has sent a bulk of the Nandigram’s ruling party leadership into hiding, prompting a change in campaign plans for the chief minister.

Despite her ongoing three-day, nine-rally tour in East Midnapore, Mamata was conspicuous by her absence from Nandigram, where she is engaged in a prestige battle with former aide Suvendu Adhikari, now in the BJP.

Local leaders of Trinamul said the re-strategising was necessitated by a development in the judiciary, prompted by the BJP’s Nandakumar candidate Nilanjan Adhikari, preventing the withdrawal of two murder cases, with 63 accused between them, from the time of the anti-land acquisition movement at Nandigram during the Left Front era.

The reopening of the cases, prodded by the judiciary, has forced 30-odd leaders of the Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee (BUPC), the umbrella body of the land rights movement with representation from the major non-Left political forces, to go into hiding. Most are from Trinamul, but there are leaders from the Congress and even the BJP.

“These leaders will be arrested, with the police administration under the Election Commission of India, if they appear in public. That’s why they are no longer seen in campaign events,” said a senior Trinamul leader.

“Some have been campaigning door-to-door, surreptitiously, in ones and twos. But that’s about all they can do. It is a real headache for us, especially because they were the backbone and brains of our election machinery in the Nandigram I block,” he added.

That is why, despite six rallies — in Egra, Patashpur, Mecheda on Friday and Haldia, Khejuri and Panskura on Saturday — by Mamata, and three more lined up on Sunday, there is no prominent Nandigram event this time.

The 63 accused include at least a dozen elected representatives of Trinamul, including Mamata’s chief election agent Sheikh Sufiyan.

“There is no doubt that the resurrection of the cases was because of that PIL by the BJP’s Nandakumar candidate, who was put up to it by Suvendu Adhikari,” said Sufiyan, who has been in hiding.

“Didi will come back on March 29 and 30, along with a battery of senior leaders from Calcutta for a Nandigram-centric campaign. However, we cannot be part if it.

It is the BJP’s conspiracy, yes,” he added.

Speaking in Khejuri on Saturday, Mamata promised to come to Nandigram. “...We will meet in Nandigram again. I have programmes there. I will be there from the evening of Holi (March 28). Please come to the Nandigram events, I invite you… and remember it always, the BJP is more dangerous than pythons.”