A vicious political storm has broken over elections to the new unitary Shropshire Council with a top Tory challenging Labour and Lib Dem opponents to each field candidates in all 74 seats.

Peter Nutting, Conservative campaign manager Shrewsbury and Atcham constituency, accused the other two parties of getting together to “divvy up” seats to avoid standing against each other and prevent Tory candidates from winning.

But Labour and Lib Dem leaders have hit back and highlighted what they claim are serious divisions among the Conservatives.

Councillor Nutting said: “In previous elections it has been common to have only a Liberal candidate or a Labour candidate standing against sitting Conservative councillors, and not both parties.

“This cannot have happened by accident and it is clear that the two opposition parties often get together to divvy up seats so that they don’t stand against each other.”

This, he said, was “bad for democracy” and he challenged the other parties to put a candidate in every one of the 74 seats.

Shirehall Lib Dem group leader, Peter Phillips, said the Conservatives were “certainly blessed” with an excess of candidates. He said more than a dozen disaffected Tories had announced their candidature against official party candidates.

He added: “Councillor Nutting is too modest. His Tories have not just a candidate for every seat. In many seats they have two or even three.”

Labour leader, Alan Mosley, said his party had never sought to have candidates in all seats and would direct its efforts to areas where it had a “real chance” of winning.

“This is typical of Councillor Nutting’s approach in see-king to make political mischief and to create division where there is none,” he said.

He added that Councillor Nutting should concentrate on dealing with the “massive rifts” in the Tory party.