At least three newly elected Opposition councillors of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation have accused the Trinamul Congress board of harassment and discrimination after being shut out of their offices.

One councillor found the room used by his predecessor being converted into the borough chairman's office, another was allegedly evicted from the office the previous councillor had shared with the ward health unit and a third found himself locked out of the chamber that he thought was his.

Subrata Ghosh, the BJP councillor from Ward 87, alleged the decision to turn the Southern Avenue office that was to be his had been made the borough chairman's office with the sole intention of harassing him.

Ghosh, who defeated former mayor Subrata Mukherjee's sister Tanima Chatterjee in the election, would sympathise with Nihar Bhakta of the CPM.

Bhakta, the councillor of Ward 127, reached his office in Sarsuna, Behala, on Monday morning to find it locked. He said the caretaker of the building told him that civic officials had locked the room and taken away the key.

Bhakta, who defeated Trinamul's Shyamadas Roy in the election last month, asked for a chair and a table to be placed on the road in front of the building so that he could start work.

Asim Bose of the BJP, the councillor of Ward 70 (Chakraberia), was just as shocked when he visited the CMC building on Chakraberia Road where his predecessor used to sit.

Bose, who defeated former CMC chairman Satchidananda Banerjee to become the ward councillor, said he was not allowed to sit in the office. "The previous councillor used to work from the ward health office but I am being barred from using the same premises," he said.

Ghosh, Bhakta and Bose are all first-time councillors.

Sources in the CMC said "such a trick" couldn't have been attempted on anyone who had served as a councillor before.

"A re-elected councillor would have known the CMC employees in the ward and confronted them had anything like this happened," a veteran Opposition councillor said.

None of the sitting councillors from the Opposition parties faced any such problem on Monday.

Sources in the CMC said allotment of rooms to councillors or departments was usually done under instructions either from the mayor or the municipal commissioner.

Mayor Sovan Chatterjee said he had never asked anyone to stop a councillor from using an office. "The moment I was informed of one incident (Bhakta being shut out), I asked officials to open the room. If anyone else is facing similar problems, they can approach the chairperson or me. They needn't talk to officials," Chatterjee said.

Bhakta apparently refused to work from anywhere other than the ward office.

The former councillor of the ward had used a room on the second floor of the ward's health office, close to Sarsuna College. A senior CMC official said many wards didn't have designated offices for the councillors.

"I sat here on Friday and Saturday. When I came in the morning, the caretaker told me that he didn't have the key, which is ridiculous," Bhakta fumed.

When that was reported to the CMC bosses, a senior official of the health department arrived and handed over the key to Bhakta. "I refused to take the key and told the officials that they should open the room," the CPM councillor said.

Atin Ghosh, the mayoral council member who is likely to retain the health portfolio, said the room was locked because of a miscommunication. "We are planning a vaccination programme, for which we need more rooms. We have taken possession of an office in another ward, so borough officials thought they must take this room too," he said.

But a senior official said no borough official would have had the gumption to deny a councillor the use of his office without "an order from the top".

Dressed in a white cotton kurta and brown trousers, BJP councillor Ghosh said standing in front of the Southern Avenue office that he had seen former mayor Mukherjee as well as his sister working from a room in the building for 15 years.

He said Mukherjee used to sit in that office as the local councillor even when he was the mayor of the CMC between 2000 and 2005.

After 2005, when he left Trinamul and fought under a watch symbol and won, he kept using the room for another five years, Ghosh said.

"In the past five years, Tanima Chatterjee used the room in her capacity as the local councillor. When I went there after taking oath on May 5, I was first told that the room would be used as the CMC's health office," he recounted.

Last Friday, Ghosh found a signage on the building announcing it as the office of the chairman of Borough VIII.

Durga Prasad Mukherjee, former chairman of Borough VIII, said the original office was located in the CMC building adjacent to Triangular Park on Rashbehari Avenue.

In Ward 70, new councillor Bose said he wouldn't have a problem sharing an office with the CMC's health wing, just as his predecessor did. "I am ready to work under a similar arrangement. But they are not allowing me to use the room at all. I asked the officials to give me another room that is not in use but they aren't doing that either."

Former councillor Banerjee confirmed that he used to share the Chakraberia Road office with officials of the civic body's health department. "They generally used it three days a week. On other days, I had the office to myself."

The allegations about first-time councillors from the Opposition being harassed comes on the heels of mayor Chatterjee declaring that the new board wouldn't have a leader of the Opposition.

His argument was that none of the Opposition parties independently accounted for 10 per cent of the strength of the 144-member House, making them ineligible to nominate a leader of the Opposition. The Calcutta Municipal Corporation Act, 1984, doesn't say that the leader of the Opposition should be from a party with a certain number of seats.