Sunday mega rally by Leftist farmers and workers' bodies at Brigade Parade ground in Kolkata

Kolkata: With an eye on next year's West Bengal Assembly elections in West Bengal, the Leftist workers' and farmers' organisations will hold a rally at the iconic Brigade Parade ground here on Sunday to press for their rights.

In a bid to start their campaign early for the 2026 assembly polls in West Bengal, where it could not win a seat in the 2021 elections, the CPI(M)-led Left Front is making an all-out effort to turn their fortunes at the hustings, a Left leader said.

Taking stock of the preparations for the mega rally at the Brigade Parade ground, CPI(M) West Bengal unit state secretary Mohammed Salim asserted that the attendance at the meeting would be higher than expected.

"It will be discernible in the rally whether Bengal's and the country's politics will be in the hands of plunderers or the workers' interests will come to the forefront," he said.

Salim, who will be one of the main speakers at the rally, said that issues like the loss of jobs of nearly 26,000 teaching and non-teaching staff in West Bengal government-aided schools, the Waqf Amendment Act and communal violence in Murshidabad will be taken up in the programme apart from workers' and farmers' rights.

During the rally, the Left parties will demand a hike in workers' wages, social security, stopping privatisation of government undertakings, write-off of farmers' loans and an increase in the minimum support price of farm produce, the Left leader said.

Before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, CPI(M)'s youth wing, Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), had held a mega rally at Brigade Parade Ground here in a bid to garner the support of the younger populace of West Bengal.

The Left Front had drawn a blank in the elections to the 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal in 2024, as in the 2019 polls.