Look left, there is a hiring alert for jobseekers from the state and beyond — the Bengal CPM is casting its net wide to recruit professionals with a job profile to transform and reform public policies “for the people, by the people”.

Secretary of the CPM’s Bengal unit, Mohd Salim, on Friday morning put out the graphic advertisement on his social media handles with the appeal: “Alert, we are #hiring!! Join our robust team to help transform Bengal!!”

The advertisement asks interested individuals to apply for the positions of political analyst, political intern, content writer, graphic designer and digital marketing executive.

Going to the market to recruit personnel to build a team is a significant departure for a regimented force like the CPM because, in communist parties, recruitments happen internally, generally from among its cadres.

Asked about the out-of-the-box move, CPM’s state secretary Mohd Salim told The Telegraph: “During the last two elections, the party felt the need of a professional team to collate and analyse data and information.... As we need people with professional expertise, we have used social media platforms to spread the word. We want to cast the net wider.”

While a senior CPM leader said the move had been discussed within the party, he agreed that going outside the party platform to hire professionals was a first for any state unit and also an admission of the dearth of internal talents capable of creating campaigns that help establish a party-people connect.

“Professional inputs will help the party formulate and design its campaign, strategise public policy discourse and create a party-people connect in the run-up to Bengal’s electoral battle in 2026,” said the CPM state committee member.

The CPM’s attempts at hiring professionals come at a time when every other party is banking on hired professional agencies to fight polls.

The appeal shows that the CPM has woken up, albeit a bit late, to the fact that the art of fighting polls has changed big time since the CPM last ruled the state.

“The CPM might fall short on funds but the party has realised that it needs to go outside to scout for talent it lacks internally. Without it, chances of a Left revival would be impossible and any further delay will be to the party’s peril,” the state committee member said.

The CPM’s poll performance since it lost power in 2011 has shown its disconnect with people.

In the past few elections, the CPM used its internal resources, consisting mostly of young talents, to come up with innovative communicative materials but those “smart campaigns” did not create the desired impact on people’s minds, prompting the CPM to look beyond its home.

“Advances in technology and the field of communication are happening fast. That is why the lack of a professional team who can build the right campaign for communication is being felt,” a CPM leader said.

Almost echoing him, Salim told The Telegraph: “The endeavour is to create innovative, technologically driven, data-backed and creativity enthused campaigns.”

The initiative is one of the many projects the party has decided to undertake in the memory of Sitaram Yechury and former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

“This project is a capacity-building exercise of our internal IT and data crunching wing. Other parties usually outsource this job to external agencies but we cannot do that. So, we have decided to hire people who are professionally equipped to handle our needs,” Salim said.

The CPM’s move is significant as parties outside the Left spectrum have over the past several years increased the involvement of professional political strategists like Prashant Kishor, who for hefty fees are believed to add an edge to the electoral campaigns of their clients.

Salim, however, refused to draw any parallel between the party’s initiative and that of strategists like Prashant Kishor or consultant agencies like I-PAC.

“He (Prashant Kishor) is a mercenary. He has done it for several parties... BJP, TMC etc. Like theirs, this is not an election-driven project. As for elections and policy matters, the party will take care of those,” Salim said.

The move also comes with certain challenges for the CPM, including paying professionals the right market rate if it wants to get the best in the business. As of now, there is a lack of clarity on the issue as the payment would be several times more than what whole-timers who help run various ventures of the CPM get.

“There are Left-minded IT people from Bengal and outside who are flooding my inbox with requests to work professionally with us. Some might even want to work with us setting aside market parameters. Mind you, we will handle the process professionally. Even the recruitment process will be done by domain experts,” Salim said.

Salim's appeal has triggered a plethora of social media responses from supporters, who have welcomed the move as a "bold and positive", while some pointed out that it had come a tad late.

"Better late than never...," wrote one social media user Rajarshi Dasgupta on the Bengal CPM's Facebook page.

However, a handful of supporters sounded critical and saw it as a corporate-like move.

As the party takes a new step at capacity building and seeks to break the electoral drought in Bengal, Salim sounded hopeful and said: "CPM badal raha hain (The CPM is changing)."

However, what sounds good on paper for the CPM's march forward will be tested on the ground in less than two years when the next Assembly poll is held in Bengal in 2026.