In yet another incident of a deadly attack on a ruling Trinamool Congress satrap, a party worker was gunned down in Bankura’s Sonamukhi block late on Monday night. The incident is suspected to be a result of factional feud within the party. The victim, identified as Sheikh Sayan, was shot three to four times in the head at Chakai village of Sonamukhi police station.
According to local sources, Sayan, the booth president of the ruling party in the area, was returning home from a local market around 9 pm. When assailants on motorbikes intercepted him in an open area away from the business pocket. “They fired multiple shots at his head before fleeing the scene. We rushed him to a nearby hospital, where he was declared dead,” said a local resident.
Preliminary investigations indicate that Sayan had been arrested a few months ago in connection with a shooting incident in the same area. Police suspect the murder may be linked to an ongoing factional dispute within the TMC. Two TMC workers have already been detained for interrogation in connection with the killing.
With the Monday’s attack, a total of seven ruling party’s workers were murdered within a span of past one month in the state. All the incidents were said to be fall out of the TMC’s intra-party feud.
Chakai village has been a flashpoint for internal party conflict over the past year. On March 2, two TMC factions clashed in a gunfight that left one leader injured. Less than six months later, another local party figure has been killed in similar circumstances.
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The incident has triggered a political blame game. TMC’s Bishnupur organisational district president, Subrata Dutta, accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of orchestrating the murder in alliance with the CPM, claiming it was an act of desperation ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections. “The BJP MLA has the support of this incident,” he alleged.
The BJP refuted the charges, with the local leadership asserting that the killing stemmed from a TMC factional feud over land distribution. “The BJP has no connection with this murder,” said a BJP leader, recalling a previous TMC worker’s death in the same village, which was also attributed to internal rivalry.
Police have launched a probe to ascertain whether the killing was politically motivated, a personal dispute or a premeditated attack.
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