MIDNAPORE: A Trinamool Youth Congress leader was arrested late on Thursday for allegedly hatching a plot to assassinate West Midnapore SP Bharati Ghosh. Police say the plan was to poison the water pitcher in the IPS officer's office.

Preliminary investigation suggests the conspiracy was hatched by a Trinamool Congress faction after it was sidelined by a rival group, which claimed credit for engineering the defections that helped the ruling party take control of Kharagpur municipality on June 5, say police sources.

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The first arrest was made at 4:05pm — when Trinamool Youth Congress president Abhishek Banerjee, MPs Subhendu Adhikari and matinee idol Dev were speaking at a public rally in Keshpur, an hour's drive from the SP's office. The SP and district magistrate's security had been strengthened a couple of days ago. Police say the murder plot was foiled when a constable posted at Ghosh's office saw 28-year-old Satish Gupta trying to pour some powder into the drinking water pot. Gupta had two envelopes, white and yellow, packed with a yet unidentified powder.

Gupta's interrogation led police to the home of Trinamool Youth Congress Kharagpur Town president Manoj Thambey. He was arrested at 11.05pm. Manoj's wife Sandhya accused police of faking the charges. "The allegations are false. He has done no such thing," she said. Police said that a probe led by Kharagpur SDPO Santosh Mondal indicates that Thambey is close to former Kharagpur municipality chairperson Johor Pal, who was one of the contenders for Kharagpur municipality chairperson. But the June 5 defections — when seven councilors from CPI and BJP defected to Trinamool — nudged him out of contention. Instead, a lesser known partyman, school teacher Pradip Sarkar, became civic chairperson.

During the suspects' production in court on Friday, additional public prosecutor Nazim Habib told the chief judicial magistrate that it was a big conspiracy. "While investigating (eavesdropping into telephone conversations) in a robbery case (no 261/15), police heard an intercept: 'ebar saheb ke khotom korte hobe'. Accordingly, the security of the SP and district magistrate was beefed up, leading to the arrests. It is still not clear who were the intended targets. One name, Asish Pal, was overhead. The matter needs to be investigated," Habib said. The duo was remanded in police custody for 12 days.

In the last civic poll, Trinamool won 11 of the 35 seats, falling short of majority. Sources say Johor Pal was leading the effort to reach out to alleged railway mafia Srinu Naidu in Midnapore jail and use his influence to poach BJP councilors — including Srinu's wife Pooja. Around the same time, Congress and Left Front had hit out at SP Bharati Ghosh for allegedly targeting opposition councilors. Congress had even moved Calcutta high court seeking directions to the West Midnapore police to ensure their councilors' safety. It isn't the first time that Ghosh has been sucked into controversy. She was among those censured by the Election Commission ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

The SP said, "Two persons have been arrested. We are interrogating them to understand if anyone else was behind this diabolical plot." Johor Pal said the party was launching its own investigation to get to the bottom of it.