LEFT Front in West Bengal has started the election campaign in an energetic mood, with candidates already in the streets, interacting with people. Wall writings, door-to-door campaigning and local level meetings are being organised in numbers.

CPI(M) and the Left Front have taken the initiative to galvanise the process to maximise the pooling of anti-BJP, anti-TMC votes. Left Front had opened a dialogue with the Congress. Left Front suggested that there should be no mutual contest in six seats won by the Left Front and the Congress in 2014 elections. In the first list of Left Front, four seats of the Congress remained vacant. Discussion took place for the rest of 36 seats. But the Congress has suddenly declared 11 candidates including those six seats, forcing the Left Front to declare candidates in other seats.

Left Front chairman Biman Basu, while declaring names of 38 candidates on March 19, asserted that Left Front is serious about mobilising anti-BJP, anti-TMC votes to defeat both of them. As a gesture, the Left Front refrained from announcing candidates in four seats of the Congress even after their unilateral decision to break up.

CPI(M) state secretary Surjyakanta Misra stated that though we don’t want to enter into debate with the Congress, the people would understand who benefits from division of votes. CPI(M) will go ahead with people, both in struggle and in elections.

In the Left Front list, there are seven women candidates among 38. On the one hand there are eminent persons like advocate Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, Dr Rejaul Karim, Professor Nandini Mukherjee and Maksuda Khatun, on the other hand, several young candidates from student and youth fronts will contest. Experienced leaders like CPI(M) Central Committee members Amiya Patra, Ramchandra Dome, Abhas Roychoudhury, state committee members Deblina Hembram, Rama Biswas, Nepaldev Bhattacharya, Gouranga Chatterjee, Saman Pathak, Gargi Chatterjee, Koninika Ghosh have been named as candidates. CPI leader Pallab Sengupta will contest from Basirhat.

Misra addressed a huge public meeting in Raiganj, practically the first one in this election on March 17. Md Salim is the present representative and candidate in this constituency.

Misra said that the BJP and the TMC are two sides of the same coin. There is an urgent necessity to mobilise all votes against them in a unified manner. However, to disturb the process, even Ambanis are active. Ambanis want to save Modi government at centre and Mamata Banerjee as well. After two months, there will be no Modi at the centre and Mamata will also become unstable. If one looks carefully it is understandable that the TMC has left eight to ten seats for the BJP. TMC candidate list is an ample proof of that. Though there is public spat, the game of vote transfer is there underneath.