Trinamul replaced party candidates in four Assembly seats on Friday, apparently to quell growing discontent over the names announced by chief minister Mamata Banerjee on March 5.

The replacement of candidates for Ashoknagar and Amdanga (North 24-Parganas), Dubrajpur (Birbhum) and Kalyani (Nadia) Assembly seats was communicated through an official release without assigning any reason.

Party insiders in the districts however admitted that rebellion by many workers compelled the top party brass to replace the candidates.

Narayan Goswami, a North 24-Parganas zilla parishad member, will replace sitting MLA Dhiman Roy in Ashoknagar. Many party workers in Ashoknagar were so upset with Roy’s re-nomination that they had refused to campaign for him.

At Amdanga of North 24-Parganas, the party picked Rafiqur Rehman to replace Mustak Mortaza Hossain. The Trinamul nominated Hossain in place of Rafiqur over allegations of the sitting MLA’s involvement with factionalism. Hossain’s nomination created resentment among party workers close to Rafiqur. Insiders said the faction close to Rafiqur forced the party to re-nominate the sitting MLA.

In Birbhum’s Dubrajpur, the party has chosen college teacher Debabrata Saha as a replacement for Ashmita Dhibar, sabhapati of Khoirasol panchayat samity. The party nominated Dhibar replacing sitting MLA Naresh Bauri. Dhibar’s nomination irked party satraps who wanted a “strong candidate” to take on the BJP.

In Nadia, Trinamul replaced its two-term MLA Ramendranath Biswas with son Aniruddha Biswas, who teaches information technology at a private engineering college, for the Kalyani (SC) seat. Many said “Ramenbabu” often made “irresponsible statements”.

Additional reporting by Snehamoy Chakraborty

Ride a message

Manoranjan Byapari, the award-winning author and Trinamul Congress candidate from Balagarh in Hooghly, pulled a rickshaw for over a kilometre on Friday afternoon to reach the district magistrate’s office in Chinsurah town to file his nomination papers. Amit Kumar Karmakar

Manoranjan Byapari, the award-winning author and Trinamul Congress candidate from Balagarh in Hooghly, pulled a rickshaw for over a kilometre on Friday afternoon to reach the district magistrate’s office in Chinsurah town to file his nomination papers.

Byapari said he used to pull a rickshaw in the early part of his life and his move was to send a message to the people that he represented the toiling mass.

Byapari is also the chairman of Dalit Sahitya Academy.

He is contesting an election for the first time.

Report by Snehamoy Chakrraborty