CPM's panchayat poll drive to start early

The panchayat election is scheduled early next year but the Left Front, with a view to getting a head-start over its political opponents, has already started preparing for it from now.

“The possibility of early panchayat poll is bleak because different public examinations are likely to be held through January. Naturally, making the provision for around 35,000 poll booths before the exams begin could be a major problem for the state administration. But we wanted to start our preparations for the polls from now only,” Left Front chairman Biman Bose said.

He told media persons that the state CPM (Communist Party of India-Marxist) leaders would take out a massive rally on November 17, with a view to highlighting the incidence of crimes against women, both in Bengal as well as in other parts of the country, especially Delhi and Haryana.

After a meeting with the other Left Front partners in the state, Bose said, “In the meeting we have reached a consensus on the decision for an early start to the dialogue process with the Left Front's partners on possible seat adjustments for the ensuing polls.
"The dialogue process will begin at the earliest, both at the state and district-levels. Our Front partners would also hold bipartite talks among themselves," said Bose, a CPM politburo member.

The last time, the Left Front partners failed to reach a consensus on seat allocation and that gave Trinamool Congress an edge.

With no possibility of alliance between the Congress and the Trinamool Congress, a CPM central committee member said “we will have an added advantage. We want to capitalise on that and so have decided to reach out to the people at the earliest to make them aware of the political situation in the state.”