Reach out and intensify mass connect, CPM tells party workers
Times of India | 24 February 2025
12 Kolkata: Grappling with its eroding mass base in Bengal, CPM has asked party workers to pursue the "mass line" and intensify connect with people ahead of the 2026 assembly polls. On the second day of CPM's 27th state conference, the party also assessed the impact of "dole politics" and "identity politics" in attracting voters.
"The rise of rightist forces has created confusion among people in Bengal. We have to reach out to them and connect with the masses. There are organisational weaknesses, and we are trying to overcome that," CPM state secretary Md Salim said.
At its Kannur party congress in 2022, CPM accepted a "severely eroded" mass base in Bengal. While the erosion continued, in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the party could not even field agents in 12-14% of booths.
Mass organisations linking the poor — once the foundation of the party — were nonfunctional in several districts. CPM, in its review after the last Lok Sabha polls, felt the need for class-based movements to regain influence over the electoral base.
"The working class has not withdrawn their support from us but they are confused. However, we saw an increase in their support in the 2023 panchayat poll," Salim said. The Left Front bagged 14% of votes in the 2023 rural polls.
At the state conference in Dankuni, CPM members also stressed the approach to "dole politics" in the state, where schemes like Lakshmir Bhandar played a crucial role in empowering women. It accepted that the campaign attacking welfare schemes as "bribes" or "doles" only alienated the poor from the party.
CPM also discussed the surge in binary politics in the state in the wake of "identity politics", especially in north Bengal. "In districts like Murshidabad, millions were spent to create the binary before the polls," Salim said.