WB: CPI-M may find going tough in LS poll'09

Post Nandigram and Singur, the Communist Party of India-Marxist is likely to face its toughest electoral battle in West Bengal where Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress has entered into an alliance with the Congress.

The CPI-M-led Left Front with 50.71 per cent vote share had bagged as many as 35 of the 42 seats in the state in the 2004 Lok Sabha election and swept the assembly election two years later in 2006 capturing 235 of the 294 seats.

In the 1999 LS election, the Left Front had secured 46.74 per cent votes with CPI-M alone having 35.57 per cent.

The Trinamool Congress, a constituent of the National Democratic Alliance in 2000 was decimated in the last LS poll and only party chief Mamata Banerjee won the lone seat. Trinamool had barely managed to win 30 seats in the state assembly in 2006.

Trinamool's vote share had also gone down to 21.04 per cent in 2004 compared to 26.04 in the 1999 L S polls.

However, in the 2008 panchayat election, the CPI-M's electoral graph started going down when the party tasted defeat in East Midnapore, which had seen a fierce agitation against farmland acquisition and subsequent police firing in Nandigram in March 2007.

Trinamool Congress had not only stormed to power in the East Midnapore zilla parishad, but also captured the zilla parishad in another red bastion South 24-Paraganas district besides putting up impressive showing in some other districts like North 24-paraganas, Nadia, Hooghly and others.

That its movement against the farmland acquisition for industry had paid off was reflected in the party's victory in the panchayat poll at Singur from where Tata Motors' small car Nano was supposed to roll out.

Trinamool Congress' winning spree continued even in the subsequent assembly by-elections in Nandigram, Bishnupur (West) and others with impressive margins.

To put the CPI-M in a tight spot, Trinamool has stitched an alliance with the Congress which had a vote share of 15 per cent in the last LS poll which made the Marxists jittery.

Poll observers say that if the alliance managed to get to the grassroot level of both the parties, it might make the electoral battle tough for the Left.

Aware of it, the CPI-M has mounted an attack on the alliance with Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee dubbing it as "unprincipled".

That the Marxists have realised the battle would be tough this time was proved by the remark of CPI-M patriarch Jyoti Basu recently that the party's tally of seats might go down.

Observers say that in 2001 assembly election when the Trinamool and the Congress had joined hands, it had not made much of an impact since both the parties had failed to take it effectively to the grassroot level.