The spectre of Sheikh Shahjahan and his aides had reportedly kept the CPM away from Sandeshkhali for over a decade.

Now, bolstered by the Trinamul strongman’s arrest, the CPM is trying to regain lost ground by reopening party offices, taking out small rallies and forming booth committees before Lok Sabha polls.

“For 10 years they did not allow us to hold political activities in the area. The people’s uprising has emboldened us to return to the area. Our supporters, many of whom had lost their lands to Trinamul goons and suffered atrocities at their hands, are slowly coming out. With their support, on Saturday we opened our Korakati party office in Sandeshkhali block-II that Trinamul had locked 12 years ago,” Nirapada Sardar, who was the last CPM MLA to represent Sandeshkhali, told The Telegraph on Saturday.

Sandeshkhali, the turf for the Communist party-led Tebhaga movement that established the rights of sharecroppers, was represented by the CPM in the Assembly without a break from 1977 to 2016.

The CPM’s winning streak ended with Trinamul's Sukumar Mahata defeating Sardar in 2016. However, even before that, the CPM was outpowered organisationally here since the 2013 panchayat polls. It failed to field any candidate in the region in the 2023 rural polls.

“Though Sandeshkhali had a CPM MLA till 2016, the ruling party unleashed terror in the run-up to the 2013 panchayat elections forcing our party supporters and sympathisers to shun political programmes and refrain from contesting rural polls,” local CPM activist Pradipta Sarkar alleged.

The number of CPM cardholders in the area dropped drastically since 2013. But the scenario has been changing slowly for the CPM in the wake of the Sandeshkhali protests since February 7 against alleged atrocities of local Trinamul leaders.

In the past month, as villagers, particularly women, came out on the streets to demand the arrest of Trinamul leaders Shahjahan, Shib Prasad Hazra and Uttam Sardar, who they accused of land-grab, physical and sexual assault and extortion, Sandeshkhali grabbed national headlines. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi has gone on an overdrive to corner Bengal’s ruling party in the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls.

Aware of the BJP’s big push in Tebhaga, the CPM is making its presence felt by taking out small rallies in Sandeshkhali areas including Bermajur, Jeliakhali, Dhamakhali, Khulna, Manipur, and Durgamandap, reactivating sympathisers, decorating the area with party flags and street-corner meets in market places.

“The BJP is playing a dangerous communal game.... They are trying to break people's democratic resistance against Trinamul’s terror. That is why we have decided to hold a rally in Sandeshkhali on Monday to make the people aware of the BJP’s devious design to use religion to break the democratic movement of the rural poor,” said Sardar.

Grassroots CPM leaders are holding small parleys in villages to regroup people.

“The fear of Trinamul is still there. Several second-tier Trinamul leaders against whom people have lodged complaints are roaming free and threatening our supporters.... For now, our target is to form booth committees and hoist the party flag in every booth across Sandeshkhali,” said Pradipta, who also teaches at a local school.

However, villagers like Bermajur farmer Subir Sarkar felt it the Left would not have it easy.

“I had got a few parcels of land from the Left Front government. Most of my land parcels have been grabbed by Shahjahan and his goons. I sympathise with the CPM but I am too scared to publicly show my support. The threats are real,” Sarkar said.

Trinamul refuted the CPM’s charges.

"Sandeshkhali's people are not with the CPM. The party... has no ground support. That is why CPM leaders are accusing Trinamul of threats," said minister Partha Bhowmick.