Police arrested a senior Trinamul Congress leader in Nadia on Friday for his alleged involvement in the murder of a party worker.

Kumaresh Chakraborty, a former vice-chairman of Santipur municipality, is suspected of involvement in the shooting and hacking to death of Santanu Mahato on Tuesday. Chakraborty is named in the FIR with 11 others. He was picked up from the public library ground when he was speaking to party workers.

Police sources said Chakraborty, known as a close aide of Trinamul MLA Arindam Bhattacharya, had been accused of conspiring to murder Mahato, 34.

The murdered Trinamul worker was a close confidant of former MLA and municipality chairman Ajoy De, who leads the party faction opposed to Bhattacharya, the police said and added that the killing was a fallout of inner-party rivalry.

The police said Chakraborty would be produced before the additional chief judicial magistrate’s court in Ranaghat on Saturday morning.

A police officer said: “The accused has been named in the FIR and arrested to probe his suspected role behind the alleged murder.”

Earlier on Wednesday, the police had arrested Santu Choudhury, another accused named in the FIR.

Bhattacharya ruled out any internal bickering.

“I do not know why the family members of the deceased are blaming me. Any death is unfortunate. As far as I know, the deceased had a criminal background and probably got killed because of personal enmity. He was not a party activist,” Bhattacharya said.