Leading a party of intense squabbling, West Bengal Congress President Pranab Mukherjee finds a sticky wicket in his home turf seven days ahead of assembly polls in the state.
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Even as the party staggered to cross the ordeal of selecting candidates, dissention rumbles and rebellion stares at it, threatening the poll prospects in Murshidabad district, the only stronghold of the Congress in West Bengal that saved it from total disaster in the previous assembly elections and the last Lok Sabha polls.
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Triggered by bitter rivalry between the party strongman and Lok Sabha member Adhir Chowdhury and Congress Legislature Party leader Atish Sinha, the district is in the vortex of internal bickerings with three rebel candidates throwing gauntlet against the official nominees, and the hopes for a better show elsewhere in Murshidabad threatening to come a cropper.
Defying the party high command, Chowdhury fielded independent rebel candidates against Sinha in Kandi, Mayarani Pal in Behrampur and Niyamat Sheikh in Hariharpara, for what he called a 'crusade.'
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Party sources apprehend that the infighting, which vertically split the organisation in Murshidabad, will leave its impact in the other constituencies of the district.
Upset over the development, All India Congress Committee General Secretary in-charge of Bengal Margaret Alva treaded cautiously to say that she would talk to Chowdhury over the issue and try to persuade him to withdraw his candidates.
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Pradesh Congress Committee chief Pranab Mukherjee, who made his first entry to the Lok Sabha in 2004 from Murshidabad district courtesy Adhir Chowdhury, made it clear that the party will not revise its decision on the nominees from those three constituencies.
"It was the party's decision that we would nominate all the sitting legislators, and there is no question of backing out from that decision," he categorically said.
