The CPM on Sunday used the Brigade Parade Ground’s big stage for twin purposes — to signal that the time was ripe to roll out its youth brigade for greater political responsibilities and to sound the bugle for the Lok Sabha polls by challenging rivals Trinamul and the BJP with a pitched battle.

“We are sowing the seeds to help them grow into plants… we will play the role of gardeners, provide fertilisers and irrigate the field well to help them grow,” CPM state secretary and former DYFI leader Md Salim told a massive crowd, which had turned up to mark the culmination of the Insaaf Yatra (March for Justice).

The party’s youth wing had started its Insaaf Yatra from Cooch Behar on November 3 and ended it at Calcutta's Jadavpur 50 days later, after walking for over 2,200km.

Salim’s metaphors were enough to indicate that the party was preparing the younger generation to handle greater responsibilities under the leadership of 39-year-old DYFI state secretary Minakshi Mukherjee, whom CPM veteran Biman Bose often refers to as “captain”.

The cadres, who had filled up the Brigade Parage Grounds in massive numbers, seemed to have come prepared for Salim’s signal.

This was reflected when cries of “Minakshi zindabad” rent the air for a while as the DYFI leader walked up to the podium to deliver her speech that lasted for around 20 minutes, and was peppered with attacks on both the BJP and the Trinamul.

A party veteran said a move to push forward the younger generation in decisive roles had been developing as a strategy within the CPM for a long time, particularly after successive electoral reversals. Before Salim dropped the hint, central committee member Abhas Roychowdhury in his speech left nothing to imagination about the role of Minakshi and her team.

“With the new generation in the front, a possibility of the rejuvenation of the Left and democratic movement has been unfolding in Bengal. The possibility of rejuvenation will help (in the long run) throw away the evil force from Bengal’s seat of power,” Roychowdhury said as CPM veterans, including Bose and Surjyakanta Mishra, sat among the audience as the Brigade resonated with a loud applause.

Aware that the 50-day long march was to pledge resolution of all “nainsaafi (injustice)” and the Left’s revival in Bengal hinged on offering an alternative, Minakshi in her speech minced no words to say that divisive politics and corruption were the twin evils that needed to be fought to deliver justice to people, particularly youths.

“We have walked on foot sometimes to demand colleges, open factories or ensure communal harmony.… This walk was to ensure justice…. We are committed to the people and so this fight for justice is a continuous process,” Minakshi said as she urged Left supporters and sympathisers to “widen the field to capture it” and ensure the defeat of the “communal BJP and corrupt Trinamul”.

From Roychowdhury to Salim to Minakshi, every leader who spoke at the Super Sunday rally tried to strike a chord with the youths as they spoke of the need to provide jobs.

“The fight will be for work. Move away from the mock fight (between the BJP and Trinamul) and fight for real cause,” Minakshi said while making it clear to the gathering about the Left’s rivals in the elections where the party seeks to achieve an electoral turnaround.

If the Brigade rally was unveiling the party’s strategy with the younger team of leaders, Salim, who was the last to speak, reminded the gathering about the immediate work at hand — the 2024 Lok polls.

“We have walked for 50 days but a lot more needs to be covered,” Salim said almost trying to tell supporters that they should not be overwhelmed by Sunday's massive turnout.

Though Sunday’s Brigade was a standalone show of the DYFI, in the run-up to the 2021 Assembly polls the Left Front, including the ISF and the Congress, had held a large rally at the same venue. Despite the massive Brigade turnout, the Congress and the Left Front failed to win a single seat in the Assembly polls.

Salim said: “The Insaaf Yatra will not stop with the Brigade rally but it has only started from here. We will have to reach out to the remote parts of Bengal.”

Using the DYFI stage to send the message to his party cadres before the Lok Sabha polls, Salim came down heavily on the BJP and Trinamul and cited the CPM’s oft-repeated "setting" theory between chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Accusing Trinamul of corruption and naming jailed leaders from Partha Chatterjee to Jyotipriya Mullick to say that Bengal had spiralled downwards ever since the Left was ousted from power, Salim alleged that Mamata’s sole agenda was to "protect nephew Abhishek Banerjee" while caring little for the youths who in large numbers migrated from the state to search for their livelihood.

“After the BJP came to power, Trinamul's audacity increased. If a thief becomes the guard, who will nab the thief,” Salim said, urging the people to take a "Left turn" and asking them to be aware that Delhi was "busy" handing over the country to industrialists such as the Adanis and Ambanis.

As a huge national Tricolour flew beside the stage at Brigade, Minakshi used a cricketing metaphor to drive home the reality of the Left’s future in Bengal's present political scenario.

“We know it is not a T20 match but when some players enter the field, a match can change,” she said.