The civic polls scheduled for Sunday have assumed importance because these are being viewed as the dress rehearsal to the Assembly elections of 2011.
These municipal elections will allow the CPI(M) to find out whether it has recovered the ground it lost in the Lok Sabha elections. For the Trinamul Congress will also get a
n opportunity to know whether the pro-change wave riding which it won a landslide in the parliamentary polls last year, was still sweeping Bengal.
On Sunday polls will be held in 81 municipalities. In 2005, the Left Front had won more than two-third of these municipalities including the prestigious Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC).
Significantly, not just the Left Front and the Trinamul Congress but even the beleaguered Congress which will also get a chance to assess its strength and weakness in Sunday’s civic polls. The Congress and the Trinamul Congress failed to forge an alliance.
The collapse of the alliance led to bitter acrimony between Mamata Banerjee and Pranab Mukherjee camps. It was the 141-ward KMC which was the main bone of contention between the two allies.
For the ruling Left Front, it will be a litmus test after back-to-back electoral defeats.
The Left Front is hoping to reap electoral dividends from the division of anti-Left vote which they are expecting after the break up of the Trinamul Congress-Congress alliance. In 2005, the Left Front had won 54 of the 81 civic boards. This time it is Mamata Banerjee who is expecting to turn the tables on the Marxists.
Interestingly, the focus of all parties in the run up to the polls had been on political issues instead of civic issues.