CPI-M working over anti-BJP Left front in West Bengal

KOLKATA: Bengal’s CPI-M has initiated a process aimed at consolidating Left parties, as their strength shrinks in the state with the BJP making fresh inroads. A meeting of 16 Left parties held at the CPI-M headquarters on Alimuddin Street on Tuesday decided to hold an anti-communal convention in the city on Thursday and organise a rally on the anniversary of Babri Masjid demolition on December 6. The Left Front led by the CPI-M had never felt the need for consolidation of Left forces when it was in power for 34 years, before the Trinamool Congress overthrew it in 2011.

But now, with the Narendra Modi government at the Centre and BJP's growth in the state, the CPI-M is seeking support of smaller parties. CPI-M politburo member and Left Front chairman Biman Bose said on Tuesday that these 16 parties will meet again before December 6. Three Naxalite factions – CPI ML (Liberation), CPI ML (Santosh Rana) and Communist Revolution League of India led by Asim Chatterjee – were among the parties which attended Tuesday's meeting. The CPI ML (Kanu Sanyal) faction refused to join them even though it had earlier promised to be a part of the CPI-M's new initiative.

The other smaller parties which attended the meeting included the Communist Party of Bharat, Bolshevik Party and Party for Democratic Socialism formed by former CPI-M leader Saifuddin Chowdhury. All the nine parties which are the constituents of the Left Front attended. Sources in the Left Front indicated on Tuesday that some of these minor parties might join the Front before the 2016 assembly elections in West Bengal to strengthen the Left unity to combat the BJP. Even though these parties say that their sole intention is to thwart “communal BJP's growth”, they on Tuesday have taken a number of political decisions, indicating that they might come up as a new Left force before the elections.

They have supported a strike by tea workers in north Bengal from Tuesday and also backed the November 26 strike in the jute industry, called by all central trade unions except that affiliated to the Trinamool. When asked whether these smaller parties will join the Left Front in the days ahead, Biman Bose said: “It is very difficult to predict what will happen in the future.”