Politics in West Bengal: The Left Front versus the Congress (I)

Abstract

By winning 230 of 294 assembly seats in the 1987 election, the Left Front (LF) coalition led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI [M]) once again managed to retain the reins of power in West Bengal. This article deals with that election and the situation that followed it. The first section discusses the major contenders-the LF and the Congress (I), their campaigns, and the major issues raised by them; the second examines electoral performances in terms of seats and popular votes; and the concluding section reflects upon the postelection situation in the state. The 1987 election was not held under extraordinary circumstances. There was no dissolution of ministry, nor was West Bengal under president's rule. The electorate went to the polls simply because the LF's second term of office (1982-87) had come to an end. Some 5.6 million new voters, 18% of the total electorate, exercised their franchise. Fourteen constituencies had a straight choice between the LF and the Congress (I), and four-cornered contests took place in 72 and five-cornered contests in 70 constituencies. 1 Before discussing the campaign, a few things about the selection of candidates by the parties should be noted. A tendency to select young candicates by both the LF and the Congress (I) had been evident since the early 1970s, and leaders of the central Congress organization were said to have again considered the age factor very seriously when selecting candidates in 1987. A significant number of the CPI (M) candidates were in their twenties and thirties, nearly a dozen of them drawn from the party's student wing while a few others belonged to the youth organizations. The other LF component parties, paticularly the Forward Bloc (FB) and the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) were also