No decision has been taken either by the ruling Left Front or the Communist Party of India (Marxist) — its largest constituent — to advance the 2011 Assembly elections in West Bengal in the wake of the reverses suffered by the Left parties, the most recent being in the November 7 by-elections in 10 Assembly seats.
“The next Assembly elections [is] scheduled for 2011; the people’s mandate (to the Left Front government) is till 2011,” Biman Bose, Chairman of the Left Front Committee, said here on Sunday.
On a recent remark by a State Minister favouring an early poll following successive setbacks suffered by the Left parties, Mr. Bose, who is also the secretary of the West Bengal State Committee of the CPI(M), told journalists: “That could be a personal view [of a minister]...it is not the standpoint of either the Left Front or the CPI(M).”
Fisheries Minister Kiranmoy Nanda had created ripples in political circles when he said here on November 11 that the government should accept the people’s verdict that had gone against it in the recent elections in the State and go in for early polls. Mr. Nanda belongs to the West Bengal Socialist Party — a constituent of the Left Front.
Intensive campaign
Admitting that there had been shortcomings in the Left’s campaign in certain districts of the State that could have contributed to its poor showing in the by-polls (the Left Front could only win one of the 10 seats), Mr. Bose said a renewed, intensive campaign was being launched to ensure that the message of the Left parties reached people. This was being done in the wake of Trinamool Congress’ attempts to confuse people with “lies, half-lies and half-truths.”
On the “rectification campaign” that has been launched by the leadership of the CPI(M), Mr. Bose said it was “a continuous process.” It “will not spare even a member of the [party’s] Polit Bureau.”
