Nirmal Chandra Roy, Trinamul's first-time MLA and now the party's nominee for the Jalpaiguri Lok Sabha seat, managed to get party leaders reportedly from various lobbies together as he filed his nomination on Friday.

In recent months, differences within Trinamul and its fronts like its local youth wing and trade union INTTUC had been reported on various issues. Many leaders were even publicly vocal against their party colleagues.

On Friday, however, almost all of them gathered at the district Trinamul office in Babupara of the town and marched together in a colourful rally with Nirmal to the district collectorate where he filed his nomination.

“We are steadily recovering our support base across Jalpaiguri district. In the 2023 panchayat polls, our party did well here. Also, we won the Dhupguri Assembly seat in the bypoll last year. The BJP MP (Jayanta Roy) here has not done anything noteworthy (since 2019) and has hardly taken any initiative to get central funds for social welfare schemes,” said Nirmal after filing his nomination.

Fielded by Trinamul in the September bypoll of Dhupguri in the district, where the newbie won, Nirmal is contesting his second election — and his first parliamentary election — within months of his political debut.

The BJP, however, has not announced anyone as its nominee from Jalpaiguri yet, indicating misgivings about Jayanta.

Mahua Gope, the Jalpaiguri district Trinamul president, who accompanied Nirmal along with state minister Bulu Chik Baraik, Siliguri mayor Gautam Deb and some others to the district collectorate, sounded confident of the party wresting the Jalpaiguri seat from the BJP.

“There is no lobby within Trinamul. All of us are working together to defeat the BJP. The CPM is not a factor here,” she claimed.

Cong backs CPM

A group of Congress leaders in Jalpaiguri on Friday joined Debraj Barman, the Jalpaiguri CPM candidate, as he went to the district magistrate’s office to submit his nomination.

“We are politically fighting against both Trinamul and the BJP. As the CPM has fielded a candidate here, we thought of reaching out to the party and expressing our support. We will work together in Jalpaiguri to ensure that the CPM candidate wins this seat,” said Amit Bhattacharya, a Bengal Congress secretary based in Jalpaiguri.

Congress councillor Amlan Munshi and Narayan Chandra Sarkar, who heads the Congress SC cell, accompanied him. “CPM leaders invited us and we responded to their call,” said Sarkar.

Salil Acharya, the district CPM secretary, echoed Bhattacharya. “We will work jointly in the elections,” he said.