Since the first three-tier panchayat polls of 1978, Jambaid village in Purulia’s Puncha block has elected the CPM to run its rural affairs.

For the Red citadel, this year’s panchayat poll result was no exception.

On Thursday, CPM’s 32-year-old Asit Baran Mahato took charge as the chief of the local rural board.

“Prior to the three-tier panchayat polls that began in 1978, there used to be elected district boards to run rural affairs. Since 1960, Jambaid has always had a Leftist person leading the rural body,” said Tridib Chowdhury, a CPM district secretariat member and in charge of Puncha block.

“Hence, technically, we have been winning here in Jambaid uninterrupted for the last 63 years. Once we complete the current term we can say we had an unbeaten run for 68 years,” he said. "And we look forward to many more years."

When asked about the electoral outcome here in the 2018 rural polls when the ruling Trinamul won 34 per cent of seats uncontested, Chowdhury said the CPM even then had bagged all the eight seats in Jambaid. Following this year’s delimitation, Jambaid has nine seats. The CPM won six. The other three went to Trinamul.

After the formation of the board, the six winning CPM members led a rally of around 1,000 people across the village on Thursday.

Mahato and his deputy Fanibhushan Majhi greeted villagers and promised they would work for all the people in the area, irrespective of their political affiliations or whichever party they had voted for in the July 8 rural polls.

“This is the beauty of Jambaid. There is no political violence or rigging here. Political differences here appear only during the elections. Once the board is formed, our members take care of everybody without bias,” Chowdhury said.

The party leadership is all praise for the grassroots organisation in Jambaid that has continued to be “an undefeated Red fort” at a time when the party is seeing a steady decline in its support base in Bengal since 2011.

Though the CPM could somewhat stem the decline in local body elections held after the 2021 Assembly polls, Purulia district secretary of the party Pradip Roy termed Jambaid’s winning streak as a "unique phenomenon".

Roy’s description of Jambaid victory is understandable.

The CPM and the Left Front have managed to win five of 1,700 panchayat bodies that went to polls in Purulia. These five include Jambaid, where the CPM did not have a pre-poll alliance with the Congress.