Nalwa (right) at the subdivisional office in Dinhata on Thursday. Picture by Main Uddin Chisti

Siliguri, Feb. 7: The Forward Bloc’s central leadership is not comfortable with Udayan Guha and his brand of aggressive politics and the rift is becoming more apparent everyday.

In stark contrast to Guha’s posturing in Cooch Behar over the Dinhata tragedy, Bloc leaders in Calcutta today remained completely silent on the subject. They maintained the matter would be discussed only at the next Left Front meeting.

The restrained response was in keeping with their decisions yesterday to cut short the state-wide bandh by 12 hours and not criticise chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who is also in charge of the police department.

Five Bloc workers were killed in police firing in Dinhata on Tuesday.

Guha, on the other hand, said today that from now on, Tuesday’s “barbaric” incident would be highlighted at all Bloc meetings.

The son of former Bloc stalwart Kamal Guha dismissed suggestions by the CPM that “anti-socials” had formed part of the procession that stormed the subdivisional office in Dinhata, triggering the firing.

“We have information that a group of anti-socials mixed with the Bloc supporters and attacked the police,” said Chandi Pal, the Cooch Behar district CPM secretary.

“There was not a single anti-social in the rally,” said Guha. “They were all our supporters.”

If in Calcutta the Bloc leaders took pains to ensure that they did not blame the government, but only the police, for the deaths of their party workers, the tone was markedly different in Dinhata.

Guha said: “We have been fighting against the CPM-led government on some major issues. After Tuesday’s incident, we doubt to what extent the unity within the front can be maintained.”

Local Bloc leaders said the sympathy generated by the deaths of their supporters would help the party in the coming panchayat polls.

Opposition parties like the Trinamul Congress, too, have jumped in to reap the benefits of Tuesday’s police firing.

“The police firing and the death of the supporters of a front ally will top our agenda during the campaigns before the panchayat elections,” Rabindranath Ghosh, the Cooch Behar district Trinamul Congress president, said today.