Kolkata, Jan 19 (PTI) Despite repeated poll debacles since 2011, the CPI(M) is optimistic of an electoral turnaround in the 2026 West Bengal assembly elections, banking on its recently concluded statewide
outreach programme, and has claimed that public resentment towards the ruling TMC and the BJP is brewing.
CPI(M) central committee member Sujan Chakraborty said the "attempts by the TMC and the BJP to make the electoral contest bipolar will fail" as the people are "looking for a third alternative in the Left Front".
He asserted that the 1000-km 'Bangla Bachao Yatra' (Save Bengal Yatra), conducted in November-December last year, revived interest in the CPI(M)-led front.
Exuberant over the "good response" it got during the 20-day march across the length and breadth of Bengal, the party is still holding localised rallies in districts.
"There will definitely be an impact of the 'Bangla Bachao Yatra' in the coming elections. People are fed up with the TMC and the BJP. They are attempting to make the political atmosphere in Bengal a bipolar one between themselves to keep the Left parties at bay, but such a design will fail," Chakraborty claimed while talking to PTI.
The former CPI(M) Lok Sabha MP from Jadavpur constituency alleged that the Mamata Banerjee-led party had given the BJP a breathing space in Bengal.
Chakraborty said that the secular social fabric of Bengal would be destroyed if "mandir-masjid politics" takes over from issues like development, jobs, education, healthcare and other pressing matters.
The CPI(M) had organised the 'Bangla Bachao Yatra' from November 29, a statewide mobilisation it claimed would expose "injustice, loot and systematic democratic erosion" under the TMC's rule and take on the BJP-led Centre's "anti-people policies".
According to another party leader, the march is part of a political movement to "rescue democracy, people's voting rights, protect school education, healthcare, and save vulnerable families from the menace of micro-loans and lottery".
Chakraborty claimed, "Bangla Bachao Yatra is very relevant since the state, which was once the forerunner in education, culture, or struggle for independence against the British, is being destroyed under the TMC rule."
TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh pooh-poohed Chakraborty's allegation and claimed that the CPI(M) has lost relevance in the state's political map.
"They should hold a 'CPI(M) bachao yatra' (save CPI(M) march)," he said.
Having ruled West Bengal uninterruptedly from 1977 to 2011, the Left has been pushed to the margins over the past decade.
It failed to open its account in the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha polls and the 2021 assembly elections in West Bengal, losing the status of principal opposition to the BJP.
The TMC spokesperson, however, claimed that the Left party's supporters have gone to the BJP.
"It is the CPI(M) supporters who vote for the BJP in the elections," he told PTI, claiming that the Left's votes have been transferred to the saffron brigade in the state.
"The BJP's increase in vote share in Bengal is equal to the reduction of poll percentage of the CPI(M)," Ghosh claimed.
The Left Front secured 39 per cent of the vote polled in 2011, with the CPI(M) alone accounting for 30 per cent, while a decade later, in the 2021 assembly elections, the Left Front’s tally fell to just 4.73 per cent.
Asked about their opposition parties' claim that radical trade unionism during the Left rule from 1977 to 2011 led to the flight of industries from Bengal, Chakraborty said, "It is wrong that trade unionism brought down industries in the state; rather, organised trade unions can help industries."
Accusing the Mamata Banerjee-led party for the flight of Tata Motors from Singur in 2008, he said that while the Left Front had got the company to invest in Bengal for setting up its much-touted Nano car plant, it was the TMC which drove the Tatas out.
He claimed that the state had been brought to its knees during the TMC rule, alleging that what prevails in Bengal at present is "joblessness and corruption".
He claimed that the agriculture, industry and education sectors are suffering in the state.
"The recent mess over Lionel Messi's event is also an indicator of how things have gone wrong in the state," Chakraborty said.
Protests and chaos had taken place at the Salt Lake stadium here during the Argentine football legend Lionel Messi's programme in December, with a section of spectators going on a rampage at the venue, complaining that they could not have a glimpse of the star. PTI AMR BDC
