His jugular veins were taut as Abdul Mannan was shouting at the top of his voice.
“We gave our blood and sweat to make the CPI(M)’s candidate win in Murshidabad. Even in the 2014 election, our cadres worked for Badaruddoza Khan of the CPI(M) to make him an MP,” Mr. Mannan stopped to catch his breath.
“And now, the Lalbagh zonal committee of the CPI(M) has decided to defeat us. They are working with the Congress … a party that we always called ‘a class enemy’. The Lalbagh committee is now working with the same Congress to defeat us in Murshidabad,” he said.
Mr. Mannan is the secretary of the Lalbagh zonal committee of the All India Forward Bloc in Murshidabad, where polling will be held in 22 constituencies on Thursday.
“Today our fight is against the Trinamool and the Congress … ,” he paused, adding, “… it is also against the CPI(M) as they are playing a filthy game with us. We have to tell people, FB is the real Left Front and the CPI(M)-backed Congress is fake.” Amid much applause from a crowd of 200 landless farmers of Ohidebpur village on the eastern bank of the Bhagirathi, Mr. Mannan stepped aside to make space for his party’s candidate in Murshidabad, Bibash Chakravarty.
Later, while returning to the western bank of the river in a jeep — which was placed atop a giant boat to cross Bhagirathi — Mr. Mannan listed the reasons for his anger.
“In the 1970s, it was on the bank of the Bhagirathi that the Congress’s goons tried to bury me alive. They had broken many bones of my brother as we were with the Communist party resisting the Congress’s landlords. Today Communists tell us to support the Congress,” he said. “The CPI(M)’s zonal leadership is publicly campaigning with the Congress against us,” Mr. Mannan said as we reached the western bank.
Key challengeMr. Bibash Chakravarty said managing staunch anti-Congress cadres was one of the key challenges. “Adjustment at the highest level did not address how we may ask our cadres to befriend the Congress in the ‘crossing’ seats.”
The word “crossing” has entered Bengal’s political lexicon in this election. “Crossing” seats are those ones where the alliance partners — the Left and the Congress — both have put up candidates triggering a three-corner fight. There are 15 such seats, including 10 in Murshidabad, where alliance partners are having a “friendly fight”.
“What is a friendly fight,” asked another angry middle-aged man, Biswanath Banerjee. “This friendliness with the Congress could be a disaster for the Left movement in the State,” predicts Mr. Banerjee, district secretary of another Front partner, Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), which has performed well consistently in Murshidabad.
The RSP is “crossing” the Congress in five of the 10 seats in Murshidabad, while the CPI(M) is “crossing” in four.
“The real challenge for the Left Front would be to make the jot [alliance] survive with Congress ministers, if we win,” he said.
Media’s blue-eyed boy in this election is the CPI(M)’s State Committee member, Asok Bhattacharya, who united anti-Trinamool forces for the first time in the 2015 civic polls. Sitting below a photograph of Hare Krishna Konar, CPI(M) Minister who led the movement in the 1960s to acquire land from ‘kulaks’ of the Congress to distribute among the landless, Mr. Bhattacharya answered the apprehension about the survival of the jot .
“In 1977, when we came to power, many asked if the Left Front would survive or not; it did for many decades. Jot would be durable,” he said, without elaborating on the nature of future alliances. Rather he opted for a pithy one liner of Karl Marx to underscore why the jot was inevitable.
“The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it,” said Mr. Bhattacharya as he rushed for the jot ’s public meeting with Pradesh Congress Committee president, who is the sworn enemy of the Forward Bloc or the RSP in Murshidabad.
