Do-or-die battle for Communists in Dum Dum seat

If the Left in West Bengal has to wrest a single seat from the opposition right wing parties in this election, it would be Dum Dum parliament constituency - a seat held by the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Tapan Sikdar, for the past two terms. For the Communist Party of India (Marxist) it's a do-or-die battle here as much as it is for the Left debutant candidate Amitabha Nandy.

The CPI(M)'s desperation in regaining this seat was made evident when the legendary former Chief Minister of West Bengal, Jyoti Basu made an appeal to his party comrades saying: "I have only one more wish to fulfil. I want to see my party capturing the Dum Dum parliamentary seat from the BJP."

For a leader like Basu who will be turning 91 in July this year and who during his tenure as chief minister for almost 24 years had rarely sounded emotional, this was rather an unfamiliar uttering.

The cue was immediately taken over by Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee who backed up Basu's appeal at a public rally in DumDum recently saying: "Dum Dum is a shame to our party. We must make amends and wrest this seat from the communal BJP." It has electrified the Communist party's rank and file who are working overtime to woo the electorate.

What makes Dum Dum so crucial a seat for the CPI(M)? Party leaders say that Dum Dum had been the cradle of Left movement in Bengal in the '60s and '70 when most of the Communist leaders hailed from this belt.

It was a lower and middle class Bengalee constituency dotted with refugee settlers who had come from erstwhile East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. They formed the backbone of the Communist party.

Yet, another important segment of CPI(M)'s rank and file was the industrial workers in this belt. Companies like Jessop, Gun and Shell factory Cossipore, His Master's Voice, hundreds small and medium engineering, chemical units and jute mills were located in this area. The Communist party had a long tradition of fighting for the worker's rights in this region and gradually gaining popularity.

But by the early '90s many of these factories faced closures throwing thousands of workers out of job. The Communists could not stop this and the party gradually lost its relevance to a large section of the people. The population profile also underwent drastic change with Hindi speaking population setting up their homes.

A section of real estate promoters began targeting the areas small and medium land holdings transforming those into multi-storied housing complexes. The Communist party's base eroded steadily and culminated into the shocking defeat in 1998, when Tapan Sikdar won the seat. In 1999, Sikdar not only held onto it, but increased the margin of victory to a whopping 136,000 votes.

The defeat in two successive polls, made the CPI(M) set up an internal inquiry committee with the needle of suspicion pointing at sabotage from within. The inquiry did not give clear answers, except for the fact that internal squabble was intense in some areas.

It also indicated the involvement of a section of party cadres with the land sharks and real estate mafias. The debutant from the CPI(M) - Amitabha Nandy therefore, knows the party's loopholes and has drawn his battle strategy accordingly.

Regarded as a tough and hardcore party comrade, Nandy is trying to rope in all sections. He has mobilised young cadres in thousands who have spread out in the constituency and have virtually painted the areas red with festoons, placards and wall writings.

But his adversary, Tapan Sikdar of BJP knows that he has no organisational set up, no muscle power and finally no money power to match that of its opponent. He has to merely ride the tide of popular discontent of the people against the Communists to make it three in a row.