Self-prediction stares at Left Front in Bengal

In the wake of the 2001 Assembly elections, the CPI(M) unit of West Bengal in its report to the central committee highlighted three potential problems and warned that those could undercut the base of the Left Front in the years to come. Five years on, some of the predictions could be coming true.

At a presentation in May 2001 before the central committee, the state party pointed out that the Left Front polled 48.99 per cent of the vote. This was a slight decline of 0.33 per cent compared to the 1996 Assembly elections, when the Front polled 49.32 per cent.

The strong base among the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes is reflected in the fact that the Left Front won 48 of the 59 Scheduled Castes seats (i.e. 80 per cent). In case of Scheduled Tribes seats, the Left Front won 16 of the 17 seats.

But the party noted that in 2001, in industrial areas it won 42 seats against 49 in 1996.

"The industrial crisis affecting a large number of units has had an adverse impact. The workers still expect the Left Front government to remedy the problem of closures, even though we have campaigned about the ill-effects of liberalisation policies," the report said.