With the Maoists and Mamata putting the CPM on the backfoot in West Bengal, the coming bypolls to the 10 Assembly seats are an acid test for the party to know the deep waters it is in ahead of the 2011 Assembly elections.

And as per the party’s own assessment, the situation doesn’t look too good. The CPM is apprehending defeat in nine of the 10 constituencies going to polls on November 7. In 2006, Kalchini, Rajgunj and Belgachia (East) had been won by Left Front candidates, while the Congress had won Sujapur and Maldah seats. The remaining five — Bongaon, Contai, Egra, Alipore and Srirampore — were bagged by the Trinamool.

Mindful of the coming embarrassment, no senior leader of the CPM showed any interest in the bypoll nominations. Besides, two of its most senior leaders — Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and CPM state secretary Biman Bose — made it clear that they would not be available for campaigning.

With the CPM’s latest internal assessment showing that over 60 per cent of its cadres are “inactive” since the LS poll debacle in May, nobody expects a miracle in the coming four days. The party, therefore, has fallen back on a successful strategy deployed by it since the 1980s — a division of the Opposition votes.

The Congress is seeing Jyoti Basu’s appeal to its voters on Sunday to support the Left, the first such statement by the CPM in the state, as another indication of a ploy to split its votes.

... contd.