The probability of comeback – although too difficult to estimate now – is not high. In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls when it won only 15 out of 42 seats from West Bengal against 35 in 2004. In 2009, LF candidates were behind the All India Trinamool Congress and the Indian National Congress in nearly 200 out of 294 assembly segments. Comeback slogan was coined within months of the LS polls. But it was when out of 81 municipalities that went to poll in end-May this year, the LF failed to get majority in less than 30 against 54 it held previously and in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, the LF won 31 out of 141 wards in contrast to 73 in the previous elections. Some incorrigible (if not foolish) optimists thought LF would cash in on the failure of AITC and INC in forging an electoral alliance or adjustment.

Never did the Left together fare so disastrously in the state since 1962. However, the comeback or turnaround is framed in the electoral perspective as, there is not yet any semblance of spontaneous revival of camaraderie with the masses, the identification mark of ‘Official Marxist’ parties during the first few terms of the LF ever since it came to power in 1977. The recapture of bases in the Maoist-infested Jangal Mahal region in the western part of the state is not the effect of political and ideological campaign against the Maoists or the Opposition AITC. The regain is essentially due to the so-called Operation Green Hunt. Allies like the Revolutionary Socialist Party and Forward Bloc often openly expressed resentment of using the Central paramilitary forces including crack anti-insurgency contingents such as Grey Hound and Cobra commandants by the CPI(M) with armed cadres and ‘hired toughs’ in flushing out the CPI(Maoist) activists to recapture CPI(M)’s hitherto impregnable party offices.

Former MPs like Manoj Bhattacharya, a central secretariat member of RSP, criticized the setting up of training camps by the CPI(M) for the operation recapture in Jangal Mahal with the Central paramilitary forces and state police. He reacted sceptically about the claim that the LF is regaining its bases due to extortionist ways of CPI(Maoist) and Pulishee Santras Birodhi Janaganer Committee (PSBJC – Peoples Committee Against Police Atrocities). In an informal chat with the IPA, “The acid test for the claim will begin after the next assembly elections due next year.” He did not counter the allegation that over 80 camps inside the Jangal Mahal with arms by the CPI(M), although Section 144 under the CrPc has been clamped uninterruptedly since June 2009 in the entire Jangal Mahal. .In a central committee meeting several RSP leaders termed the OGH as a replica of ‘occupational army’.

The media-hype about the turnaround claim, mainly in the CPI(M) newspapers and journals as also most of the national dailies is an imposed suggestion that the LF will do much better than what it did in the last Lok Sabha polls. CPI(M) central committee member and West Bengal’s housing minister Gautam Deb said somewhat bumptiously that the dream of All India Trinamool Congress supremo and railway minister Mamata Banerjee to become the chief minister is an illusion. But old guard inside the CPI(M) too are sharply divided. “The party is in a political-ideological trauma after the blunder it did in a crazy bid for industrialization”, wrote a zonal committee member of a district neighbouring Kolkata to the district leadership in the industrial belt. He did mean Singur and Nandigram as he blamed the state and central leadership which “failed to read the mood of peasant masses. The responsibility does not lie with the chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and commerce and industry minister Nirupam Sen (both polit bureau members-SR) but the CC which endorsed the suicidal policies”.

A New Delhi-based consultancy firm, engaged in exit poll and pre-poll surveys, reportedly undertook a survey of 50 constituencies and inferred that the LF may win in 123 seats in the 294 member legislature. Independent observers take the survey with a pinch of salt. The scepticism is not without reason Such consultancy outfits, using jargons like large sample survey-based exercises, proved themselves as laughing stocks after the results of 15th parliamentary polls were out.

CPI(M) brass is trying its best to reverse the mood against the LF, to generate optimism about the outcome of the ensuing 15th West Bengal state assembly polls in 2011. Words like comeback or turnaround are in the currency to create a new confidence about the LF. The turnaround slogan is a message to cadres that the electoral milieu is slowly shifting back towards the Left alongside a growing disillusionment about the AITC and its firebrand chief Mamata Banerjee.

What is then the basis of the claim or perception that the ruling LF – particularly CPI(M) – is regaining its base to a great extent? One reason is alleged non-performance of AITC-run panchayats and zilla parishads. Going by records, ZPs of Purba Medinipur and South 24 Parganas with two-thirds majority have failed to provide even 30 days-a-year jobs under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme that empowers the implementing bodies to ensure 100 days’ paid-work. AITC MP Subhendu Adhikari, the real hero of demolition of LF citadel in Purba Medinipur, blasts this allegation. “From the juniormost assistant at panchayat to the district magistrate, almost everyone dances to the tune of the ruling party. They file fabricated FIRs even against elected panchayat members and cause hindrances to release of approved funds. About MRNREG work, those who say or write that panchayats, run by our party are performing badly should note that adequate funds for giving daily-wage jobs are not coming due to non-submission of utilization certificates by previous boards, run by the CPI(M). The boot is on the other foot really.”

While Adhikari’s personal integrity and simple life style cannot be questioned, the real story cannot be known until the Comptroller and Auditor General of India submits the scrutiny which will take at least another year’s time. However, allegations of defective or fake utilization against a large number of panchayats under the previous boards are at least partially true. (IPA Service)