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BBC correspondent Carole Walker says about a dozen MPs have asked for leadership nomination papers.
Junior whip Siobhain McDonagh was fired after saying she wanted the debate on the leadership to be out in the open.
Meanwhile, six ex-Labour ministers have signed an article calling for a "new narrative" from Labour.
Our correspondent said Siobhain McDonagh was one of around a dozen Labour MPs who have written to the party requesting leadership nomination papers before Labour's annual conference.
No campaign
Several of these are expected to air their views in the next few days, our correspondent says.
There is no sign of a campaign behind any candidate yet, but there does appear to be a growing momentum behind the efforts to force a contest, she adds.
Seventy MPs would have to nominate a challenger to Gordon Brown to force a leadership contest.
The six former ministers who have called for a "convincing new narrative" from Labour include ex-health secretary Patricia Hewitt.
They are among 12 Labour MPs who signed the article in Progress magazine.
They wrote: "Labour needs to provide a convincing new narrative if left-of-centre politics are to remain the driving force in Britain.
"This has to be more than a series of policy initiatives. It has to set a new framework for post-credit crunch Britain."
They also said it was an urgent task for the party to "renew confidence in our economic competence", and described recent policies as being "defensive" when the party needed to be "bold".
They added: "Our most urgent task is to renew confidence in our economic competence so that people know that the country will come out of the current downturn with a resilient economy and a cohesive society".
Everyday issues
They said there was a "yawning chasm" that needed to be filled between the Scottish National Party's "failures" on the left of the political spectrum and Conservatives and Liberal Democrats on the right.
"Failure to do so would be a hammer blow, not only to the future of progressive politics, but also to our government," they added.
The article's signatories include former culture minister Janet Anderson, ex-Home Office minister George Howarth, former Transport ministers Stephen Ladyman and Karen Buck and Paddy Tipping, who was deputy leader of the Commons.
Also putting their name to the article are backbenchers Eric Joyce, Sally Keeble, Martin Linton, Shona McIsaac, Margaret Moran and Tom Levitt.
The MPs also called for clearer explanations of what the government had planned for "the things that affect people day to day: inflation and interest rates, household bills and mortgages".
(BBC)
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