Several Trinamul Congress candidates will now contest the rural polls by fighting their rebel party members who have filed nominations as Independent candidates in several gram panchayat seats where Opposition parties failed to field their candidates.

Despite strict instructions from the party high-command, several party members have filed nomination papers as Independent candidates under the Rajganj Panchayat Samiti area in Jalpaiguri after the Trinamul leadership refused to give them tickets.

A Gram Panchayat (GP) seat under Fulbari-I, which is under the Assembly constituency of tourism minister Gautam Deb near Uttarkanya, rightly exposes the ongoing disagreement over allotment of party tickets within the ruling party.

Vice-president of the Fulbari- I GP Trinamul Congress committee, Iyanul Haque (Munshi) filed his nomination paper at the Rajganj Block on Monday, but as an Independent, and he is determined to fight his party’s official candidate, Md Jamaluddin, who is the party’s booth committee president, even as hundreds of local residents showed visible signs of supporting him on Monday.

Three independent candidates, including Mr Haque, filed their nomination papers against Md Jamaluddin, who is contesting from the seat No Fulbari-I-19/88 right in front of Uttarkanya.

Notably, neither the CPI-M nor the BJP fielded candidates there. Similarly, one Sarathi Roy, the wife of another Trinamul leader, Swapan Roy, is contesting against an official party candidate, Namita Karati, from a GP seat behind Uttarkanya.

“The party assured me a ticket, but suddenly it decided to field another candidate and ignored the locals’ opinions. As a majority of the voters here support me, I decided to contest the elections from the Kamrangaguri GP seat against the official candidate. I will win and gift this seat to the party,” Mr Haque said.

On the other hand, the party’s Dabgram-Fulbari Block president, Debasish Pramanik, who is also a Zilla Parishad candidate from the Fulbari area, said: “The party has allotted tickets to candidates who are selected by the booth committee. Booth committee leaders will conduct a vote. We can’t ignore them.”

“We are not worried about disagreement. The party has instructed followers to cast their votes serially. A Trinamul activist will vote for the party in the three tiers (Gram Panchayat, Panchayat Samiti and Zilla Parishad) serially,” Mr Pramanik claimed.

At a time when Opposition parties are claiming violence and terror tactics during nomination filing, the adjoining areas of Rajganj Block turned a “fair ground” and the nomination filing process was peaceful amid tight police security.

As Jalpaiguri MP Bijay Chandra Barman showcased the peaceful ambiance of Rajganj Block area and termed it a “fair ground,” former Jalpaiguri MP Mahendra Roy said: “This area is apparently peaceful due to a political reason. I observed that the Trinamul Congress activists are in the back foot after the BJP assembled a large number of party workers there.”

Talking to reporters, Mr Barman, however, said: “People are running after the Trinamul Congress camp. Reports of violence are being made by the CPI-M and BJP jointly. Both the BJP and the CPI-M made an unofficial electoral alliance to beat the Trinamul Congress. But they will not succeed. Trinamul Congress will capture the Zilla Parishad and all Panchayat Samitis and will show better results in the Gram Panchayat.”

“CPI-M-backed Left supporters have decided to extend support to the BJP candidates where the former could not field its own. Similarly, the BJP is also helping the CPIM where they don’t have base,” Mr Barman added.

On the other hand, Mr Roy said that they have decided to support an Independent candidate who is in a position to defeat both the Trinamul Congress and the BJP.

“We have been able to field all candidates in the Jalpaiguri Zilla Parishad seats. The party has even been able to field candidates in 90 percent Panchayat Samiti seats. At present, I am in no position to calculate the exact percentage of the Gram Panchayat seats. Party candidates could not file nomination papers in several areas due to threats from ruling party activists,” he said, adding, “We have adjusted seats with the Congress in the Sanyasi-Kata Gram Panchayat under Rajganj block. We hope for better results in the district if the voters are able to exercise their franchise freely.” Trinamul MLA from Rajganj, Khageshwar Roy, said that they will be able to announce how many seats the party has won uncontested after compilation of the nomination papers.