CPM state secretary Mohammad Salim will be fielded from Murshidabad Lok Sabha seat, his name announced by the party along with three others on Saturday.
Later in the evening, Salim, who had said he was reluctant to contest this time, left for Murshidabad to launch his campaign on Sunday with a workers’ meet at Raninagar, a part of the Murshidabad Lok Sabha seat.
“Since I was given charge of the organisation two years ago, I have been focused on rebuilding the organisation, bringing new faces,” said Salim at the CPM state headquarters in Alimuddin Street, after the third list with four candidates was declared.
Among the other nominees are former MP Alokesh Das from Ranaghat, former MLA Shyamali Pradhan from Bolpur and educationist Supriti Ghoshal from Burdwan-Durgapur.
Though the formal announcement has not been made yet, but the CPM and the Congress are working in tandem for the Lok Sabha polls. The Congress has announced its candidate for eight seats.
Mohammad Salim on the way to Murshidabad on Saturday evening. TTOnline
State Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowwdhury too was in favour of Salim contesting from Murshidabad, which is next to Chowdhury’s constituency of Behrampore. In his home turf, Chowdhury is on a sticky wicket as six out of the seven Assembly segments in Berhampore are held by the Trinamul, and one by the BJP.
“Salim’s contesting from Murshidabad could help bring back a section of the Muslim voters to the Congress,” said a state Congress leader.
For Salim himself Murshidabad is not going to be any less challenging as in at least two of the Assembly segments of Domkal and Hariharpara CPM and Congress workers have been at each other’s throats for decades and are now unlikely to come together.
In 2016, when the CPM and the Congress had contested the Assembly polls together, in Domkal Congress had to field a candidate to ensure that its voters would not move to the Trinamul. That move had then helped CPM’s Anisur Rahman retain the Domkal seat.
Though most of the CPM state secretaries have preferred to stick to an organisational role, Salim is not the first head of the state unit to contest polls. In 2016, then CPM state secretary and leader of Opposition Surjya Kanta Mishra had unsuccessfully contested from Narayangarh in West Midnapore. In Rajasthan, CPM has fielded the party's state unit secretary Amra Ram from Sikar.
The late Saroj Mukherjee, who became the state secretary after the death of Promode Dasgupta in 1982, was a Lok Sabha member more than a decade before that from Burdwan’s Katwa seat.
Names of candidates for 13 more seats are pending, some of which are most likely to go to the Congress kitty, while CPM cajoles Left Front partners CPI and Forward Bloc.
According to a CPM leader, while negotiation is complete with the CPI, the Forward Bloc is still insisting on fielding a candidate from Purulia, where Congress has announced the name of Nepal Mahato.
“In 2019, we did not have any formal seat adjustment with the Congress. This time we are trying to contest the polls together. In such a situation we cannot have a friendly fight in even one seat,” he said.
Salim and Left Front chairman Biman Bose are confident that the differences within the Left Front will be sorted out soon.
