Trinamul supporters at Salt Lake celebrate the party’s triumph in Belgachhia East. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta

Calcutta, Nov. 10: The Congress is crying “sabotage” after the party’s “humiliating” defeat in Goalpokhar, an Assembly segment where it had led by over 20,000 in the parliamentary polls six months ago.

The North Dinajpur seat has given the Left its only re- ason to cheer in this round — the Forward Bloc candidate having trounced his Congress rival by 14,718 votes — and Mamata Banerjee a good reason to thumb her nose at her ally.

MP Deepa Das Munshi, whose election to the Lok Sabha necessitated the bypoll at Goalpokhar, had last month led the Congress move to take CPM support to snub Trinamul’s bid for the Siliguri mayor’s post.

Deepa had handpicked the Congress’s Goalpokhar candidate and, sources said, many in her own party were as unhappy with her as those in Mamata’s ranks.

“We suspect sabotage for this humiliating defeat,” state party working president Pradip Bhattacharya said. “Deepa Das Munshi had won the As- sembly seat by 8,310 votes in 2006 and got a lead of 20,766 from there when she was elected Raiganj MP in May.”

Congress leaders were divided over whether their own workers or those of their ally had hurt the party more.

At least a dozen local leaders are believed to have worked against the Congress nominee. “We have ordered a probe. The Goalpokhar result is a damper at a time the Opposition is sweeping polls in Bengal,” Bhattacharya added.

Congress leaders in Goalpokhar said they had wanted their MP to pick a candidate from among three they had shortlisted, but she went on to choose her own man, Ghulam Rabbani.

“He is a schoolteacher in adjoining Islampur. Tell me why he was picked when we had sons of the soil,” said an elderly Congressman from Goalpokhar.

Deepa’s move to take Left support to keep Trinamul out of the Siliguri civic board also did not go down well with a section of the party that is ready to accept Mamata’s supremacy in the alliance.

A state Congress leader said: “The Siliguri episode has not gone down well with ordinary Congress workers and sympathisers. It might be that a large section of them voted against us to protest Deepa’s decision to seek CPM support.”

Mamata declined comment but her party MLA Subrata Bakshi did not conceal his glee at the ally’s defeat. “Their secret deal with the CPM just to take control of the Siliguri civic body backfired,” he said.

North Dinajpur Trinamul chief Asim Ghosh added Deepa’s “bid to undermine Mamata” as another reason. “Because of her continuous efforts to undermine Didi, it is possible that our supporters had not voted the Congress.”

It is widely known that there is no love lost between Mamata and Deepa, particularly after the Congress leader des-cribed the Lok Sabha seat-share deal as “Congress surrender at the Trinamul chief’s feet”. The rift widened after the Siliguri episode.

Former Trinamul MLA Abdul Karim Chowdhury, who still has some clout in Goalpokhar, had campaigned against the Congress nominee “because he was Deepa’s choice”.

Deepa is in the capital now to lodge a “formal complaint” with state Congress chief Pranab Mukherjee. “Our own people, particularly those denied tickets, were in the sabotage. I am here to lodge a complaint,” she said over the phone.

Bloc veteran Ashok Ghosh said: “The Congress lost Goalpokhar for joining hands with Trinamul.”

Ali Imran Ramz, who won it for the Bloc, is the son of former MLA Ramzan Ali.

Sections of the Left Front said the victory would help it to some extent deny the charge that Muslims had deserted it.

The CPM also accused Deepa of failing to live up to her promises. “She had promised a branch of AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences) in Raiganj last year, but nothing has moved so far. The shifting of a power project for which she had laid the foundation stone in 2007 to Kishanganj in Bihar also had an impact,” said Subir Biswas, a leader of the district party unit.