For the past decade, since its defeat in the West Bengal Assembly elections of 2011, the CPIM has been slowly, steadily, and silently re-establishing contact with people on the ground.  In the countdown to the panchayat polls on July 8, party leaders have been campaigning in the districts and remote villages and the response, according to sources, has been “hopeful”.  Of the party’s top leaders who have been travelling through the state is veteran politician Mohammad Salim, former Member of Parliament and Politburo member.

Salim has noted that people are coming out in droves to greet the candidates and express their concerns on a variety of issues.

“For them the grievances today pertain to unemployment, corruption and other issues like an economy which is going beyond the reach of the common man and this is a cause for growing anti-incumbency both at the state level and the Centre,” Salim told The Statesman in an interview.  

The CPIM’s campaigning in the districts and remote villages has zeroed in on the anti-incumbency feelings and it has taken on both Trinamool at the state level and the BJP at the Centre.  While the poor have overwhelmingly supported Trinamool because of the popular public distribution schemes, a section of the electorate is once again warming up to the Left after a decade of Trinamool rule.

“People look for alternatives unless the party which is ruling is giving no reason for grievances,” says Debu Mondal, a 40-year-old toto- driver based in Kolkata.

He says his extended family in the villages of North 24 Paraganas district, has always been staunch supporters of the Left and that loyalty has not diminished.

“They are quite glad to see that the Left is trying to make a comeback and even if it takes a long time they are willing to wait.”

As for him, living in the city of Kolkata, it’s a different matter, he says. “The city has changed my perspective. I don’t vote according to habit or loyalty anymore but I see if the party is doing anything which benefits me or is at least promising something that I think will benefit me.” He too however, is not ruling out voting out of a sense of “anti-incumbency” whether it concerns the state or the Centre. “I will see when the time comes what I do,” he says.  

Political analysts point out that when Trinamool rose in West Bengal, large numbers of party workers deserted the Left and joined Didi’s party.

“There is no noteworthy reverse trend but the presence of the Left is being felt in districts and villages,” says a professor of political science who prefers to remain anonymous. 

Graffiti, posters, banners of Left parties are spotted and Left rallies and public meetings have been taking place not just in the villages but in street corners in the city of Kolkata.

“In a healthy democracy, the role of the Opposition cannot be overstated,” Salim told The Statesman in an interview. “During the three and half decades that the CPIM-led Left Front government was in power, the voices of dissent were, by and large, not crushed.”

Remarking on the incidents of violence that took place in certain districts during the filing of nominations in these rural polls, he lamented that Opposition candidates have often been intimidated. 

“The CPIM is a party which stands for the common people on the ground – whether the labourers of the urban areas or the peasants of the rural areas – and the rural polls are extremely important as both, the localized administration which is elected and the electorate, belong to this group. Left’s participation in this democratic process is politically important,” Salim.