Demands for early assembly elections in West Bengal by CPM ally

Left Front constituent calls for early Assembly elections in West Bengal post by-election losses

Kolkata: A Minister of the Left Front government in West Bengal has openly favoured early elections to the State Assembly following the setback that the ruling Left Front suffered in the recent by-elections. There is already an opinion within the rling CPI(M) that the winds are against the ruling party consistently, and the better thing would be to call for early elections to the state assembly and try to get a mandate. The counter-opinion within in the CPM is to wait it out and hope that Mamta Banerjee or her party, the Trinamool Congress, makes a mistake which would give them a fighting chance in an election.

Minister for Fisheries Kironmoy Nanda, who belongs to the West Bengal Socialist Party, a constituent of the Left Front, told reporters that the verdict of the people is obviously against the ruling coalition and that seeking a fresh mandate is essential.

The Bengal Socialist Party has 4 MLAs in the State Assembly.

Nanda said in no uncertain terms that “we need to accept the debacle and go for early elections to seek the people’s mandate.” In fact, he stressed, this should have been done “right after the Lok Sabha elections in 2009.”

He said that it is better for the Left Front to sit in the Opposition if it lacks the support of the people of the West Bengal.

Kironmoy Nanda even went to the extent of admitting that “we are losing the confidence of the voters” even as the victory margins of the Opposition are “rising steadily.”

He warned the partners of the Left Front that that the government will not be able to “deal firmly with” the growing lawlessness in the State or implement the development agenda successfully in the “deadlock situation” that exists now.

Kironmoy Nanda said that his party would write to Biman Bose, chairman of the Left Front, seeking a discussion on the situation after the recent by-elections.

Another Minister of the Left Front government, Kshiti Goswami, of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), however differed with Kironmoy Nanda.

Describing what Kironmoy Nanda said in favour of early elections as his “personal opinion,” Kshiti Goswami argued that the Left Front needs to review “the entire situation arising out of the steady erosion of its strength.”

Early polls, Goswami added, is not the right choice and any abrupt dissolution of the government could lead to “trouble all round.”

Elections to the West Bengal Assembly are to be held, in the normal course, in 2011.

However, Mamata Banerjee, president of the Trinamool Congress, the chief Opposition party in West Bengal, has been demanding invocation of Article 356 of the Constitution and resignation of the West Bengal Chief Minister following the Left Front’s poll debacle.

In the by-elections, the CPM, the main constituent of the Left Front, lost in all 5 seats it had contested.

According to reports, leaders of the CPM are much worried about the big increase in the victory margins of the Opposition parties, especially those of the Trinamool Congress.

Meanwhile, Pranab Mukherjee, Union Finance Minister and president of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee, has remarked that the Left Front government in West Bengal has lost the people’s support and that a majority of the people of the State are now in favour of the Congress-Trinamool Congress alliance.