In a bustling corner of the walled city, up the creaky old wooden stairs to his party's unabashedly proletarian three-room state headquarters, senior CPM leader Nilotpal Basu blew angry tobacco smoke at the state of affairs in Gujarat.

Basu's two-day visit in Ahmedabad was the latest of the Left's relentless efforts for the elusive toehold.

While Gujarat BJP and Congress leaders lend a hand in political battles for supremacy in Maharashtra Assembly polls, CPM leader Nilotpal Basu was in the city for the party's nationwide campaign against price rise and on the issue of the Right to Food. A home cooked tiffin served by the city comrade powers Basu's Gujarat plans.

“A big ideological takeover has taken over the place. Complete marginalisation of dissent makes Gujarat an exception in the country,” said Basu. The party is trying to mobilize support on the issues of food security and water shortage. Basu, after his two-day long meeting with comrades mostly from tribal Gujarat and Saurashtra, which are now Left's thrust areas in the state, believes there is a need for the Left voice in Gujarat. While Che Guevera and Harkishan Singh Surjeet looked down from the walls, Basu made a candid admission : they are their weakest in Ahmedabad city.

In Gujarat, the party has added third aspect to their nationwide campaign — the issue of water scarcity. The party admits it is nationally on a course correction path and in Gujarat hangs on to 30,000 votes it garnered in 2009 Lok Sabha polls.

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