Calcutta, May 19: Eight Bengal ministers have lost despite Trinamul's good showing in the Assembly polls, turning the scanner on infighting as a probable reason for some of the defeats.

The eight losers are Manish Gupta (power), Shankar Chakraborty (PWD), Chandrima Bhattacharya (law), Upen Biswas (backward classes welfare), Sabitri Mitra (refugee rehabilitation), Abdul Karim Chowdhury (library services), Krishnendu Chowdhury (food processing and horticulture) and Shyamapada Mukherjee (textiles).

"It's surprising that none of the politicians caught in the Narada tapes lost except for Madan Mitra. Most of the ministers who lost have a clean image," a Trinamul senior said.

Ruling party insiders said that Trinamul was wracked by infighting in two north Bengal districts, South Dinajpur and Malda. In Malda, Trinamul is divided between camps led by Krishnendu and Sabitri.

"Didi had issued several warnings to them but they did not listen. Our own people went against us," a Trinamul source said.

In South Dinajpur, Shankar Chakraborty and outgoing Harirampur MLA Biplab Mitra are at loggerheads. Both have lost.

"On election day in Harirampur, Biplab had called up Mukul Roy to complain about Shankar. He alleged the vote was being sabotaged," a Trinamul source said.

Party insiders said that Chandrima and Manish had lost from Dum Dum North and Jadavpur, respectively, because of the CPM's organisational strength and Upen from Bagda because of the Congress's local dominance.

The CPM had turned Jadavpur, where then chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had lost in 2011, into a prestige fight and made all-out efforts to regain the seat.

"We had organisational deficiencies in some of the wards in Jadavpur. We had won from there during last year's civic polls but that was different," a Trinamul politician said.

Some Trinamul officials from North 24-Parganas said the local population was upset with Chandrima for her "lack of time" for the constituency.

The new entrants to Trinamul such as Nirbed Roy, Ajoy Dey, Emani Biswas, Tajmul Hossain, Asit Mal and (Trinamul-backed Independent) Harka Bahadur Chhetri lost. Apart from Nirbed, the rest were sitting MLAs.

"The people of Tamluk did not like the ticket being given to Nirbed, who used to be one of Didi's most prominent critics," a source said.

Trinamul sources said that Dey's defeat in Shantipur was surprising since he had won the by-election after defecting from the Congress to Trinamul.

Other defectors such as former CPM veteran Abdur Rezzak Mollah and former Forward Bloc leader Udayan Guha won with handsome margins.

Mamata's strategy of attracting people from various fields into electoral politics had a mixed outcome, with defeats for prominent faces such as footballers Bhaichung Bhutia and Rahim Nabi and actor Soham Chakraborty.

In Basirhat South, footballer Dipendu Biswas defeated the BJP's lone sitting MLA, Samik Bhattacharya, while cricketer Lakshmi Ratan Shukla trounced the BJP's Roopa Ganguly and the Congress's Santosh Pathak.

Late cricket chief Jagmohan Dalmiya's daughter Vaishali won her first election, securing the Bally seat.