Determined not to give any extra space and scope to the Opposition in general and steal a march over the Trinamul Congress in particular in the run up to the Assembly election, the ruling CPI(M) has decided to announce its list of candidates on March 13. Significantly, days before, Left Front chairman Biman Bose had said that the Left parties will announce its list of candidates on March 15 after a scheduled meeting of the Front partners.
“The list of candidates of the Front may be announced on March 13 instead of March 15 after an urgent meeting of the Left Front,” said a state secretariat member Deepak Dasgupta on Friday. Later, party politburo member Nirupam Sen also confirmed in Delhi that the Left Front has preponed its publication of list by two days.
Previously, it was decided that the CPI(M) state committee would meet on March 12 and 13, followed by a Front meeting on March 15 where the candidates’ list will be announced. “We have preponed the date of the announcement of the list as we are fielding some new faces who need to be introduced a bit earlier,” reasoned another state committee member. Insiders revealed, the dilly-dally approach of the CPI(M) to pick up the “right candidates”, was sending a wrong message to its ranks that the party was in the backfoot. This apart, the Marxist party also had a tough time to placate the discontent among the Left Front partners on seat sharing for the Assembly polls during the last Front meeting. It has directed the partners to submit their final candidate lists by March 12.
On Friday, CPI(M) state secretary and Front chairman Biman Bose shared all the developments of the series of bi-partite meetings held between the Left Front partners and the CPI(M) over the past one month. The entire has been conveyed in the ongoing party central committee meeting in Delhi by Mr Bose in his report.