Cooch Behar, Feb. 16: State tourism minister Dinesh Dakua will have to sit it out this Assembly election.

Dakua, who had held on to the Mathabhanga seat for more years ? 35 to be precise ? than the Left Front has been in power in Bengal, will be replaced by Ananta Roy, the zilla parishad sabhadhipati.

A similar fate is in store for Sudhir Pramanik, the CPM MLA from Sitalkuchi since 1967. He makes way for Harish Barman, a new face.

Among the nine Assembly seats in the district, the Left Front has brought in four new faces, three from the CPM and one from the Forward Bloc. Currently, the CPM has four MLAs from the district while the Forward Bloc has five.

The CPM has also fielded its only woman MLA from the district Alaka Barman for the Tufanganj seat. Barman, a joint sabhapati of the Tufanganj II panchayat samiti, will replace Pushpa Chandra Das, who had won for two consecutive terms. The only seat the CPM has been left untouched is Natabari. This time, too, it will be contested by Tamser Ali.

The Forward Block has, on the other hand, replaced Kamal Guha with his son Udayan for the Dinhata seat.

The changes brought in by the CPM have caused resentment among the rank and file of the party. The Dakua camp has protested against Roy?s selection, arguing that he is not a local leader, but a resident of Cooch Behar (north) constituency.

Ali, the district secretariat member of the CPM, however, said: ?All these are just rumours.? An elated Roy said: ?That I am a candidate is a decision made by our party. There is no question of any infighting.?

But whatever they say, doubts remain in the minds of party members. ?Mathabhanga is a large area and we refuse to believe that there was no capable party worker at the local level who could have been a candidate,? a CPM leader said. Party insiders said a move was afoot to ?appease? Mathabhanga by making Sasadhar Barman, the present karmadhakshya of health, the next zilla parishad sabhadhipati.