Amid demonstrations by Trinamul Congress workers for two consecutive days against new block committees set up in Malda, party activists of the English Bazaar block are upset as they still do not have a committee.

The activists have been demonstrating in front of the house of the district president of the party, Mausam Noor, in Kotwali within the English Bazaar police station against the formation of block committees that they say have Congress workers. According to the protesters, the new committees were formed by leaders who just joined the TMC from the Congress.

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“The fact is that English Bazaar will see municipal elections next year and the assembly elections in 2021 are looming, but the district leadership is yet to formulate a comprehensive plan,” a party cadre said today.

It is alleged that the ever rising number of party leaders and factional feud in the municipal area are the main obstacles to the formation of the committee, while the recent leads taken by the BJP in all the wards of English Bazaar Municipality in the last parliamentary elections has made matters worse for the party.

Party leaders, however, deny having any obstacles as such, while they go on to add that the committee-formation process is ongoing.

Notably, after the induction of Samar Mukherjee, the MLA from Ratua, and Sabina Yeasmin, the Mothabari MLA, in the TMC from the Congress in July last year, the respective areas have started witnessing factionalism between the old TMC activists and newly inducted members from the Congress.

“The most important area for the party to focus on right now is the EBM area, as the elections are knocking, but the leadership is yet to take a positive step. Too many heavyweights of the party are in this place and, therefore, too many cooks are spoiling the broth,” another party activist said.

According to political observers here, the state of affairs of the party in the EBM areas clearly points to two things ~“They have either clearly made up their minds to not hold elections next year, or the leadership has utterly failed to tackle the heavyweights that abound there.”

Ms Noor, however, said that there was nothing of that sort.

“There’s no difference of opinion among the leaders and we are making certain plans together,” she said.