Kolkata, Nov 13 (IANS) Ignoring the views of a minor partner, the majority of West Bengal’s ruling Left Front (LF) constituents say there is no need to advance the state assembly polls slated for mid 2011 just because of “some electoral setbacks”.
Days after LF constituent West Bengal Socialist Party leader and Fisheries Minister Kiranmoy Nanda favoured early assembly elections saying “people have turned against us”, a prominent partner Forward Bloc dubbed his statement as “untimely”.

“The LF and the LF government are both run through joint leadership of all constituent parties. One person can’t say that the government should resign. Nanda and his party should have aired this view in a front meeting instead of going to the media,” Forward Bloc all India general secretary Debabrata Biswas told IANS.

“The ongoing attack on the Left Front from various quarters is actually an attack on India’s left movement. It is the conspiracy of the capitalist class to weaken the left in its citadel. Nanda’s statement at this crucial juncture is untimely and improper,” Biswas said.

However, he conceded that the LF needed to identify the causes for its repeated debacles in elections and take corrective measures.

Hours after the LF fared poorly in state assembly by-polls this week, winning only one out of the ten seats that went to the hustings, Nanda had said Wednesday: “The people’s mandate is against us. So, our party feels we should go for early elections. If we lose, then we will sit in the opposition. This is democracy.” WBSP has four members in the 294-strong state Assembly.

Another LF component, the Communist Party of India (CPI) said Nanda’s comment did not even merit discussion.

“We have not discussed any such thing. Nor are we considering it. We oppose what he has said. There is no need to go for early polls,” CPI state secretary Manju Kumar Majumdar told IANS.

“We have been elected for five years. Why should we call elections midway?” he asked.

LF big brother CPI-M also ruled out advancing the polls. “The election will take place as scheduled. It will not be advanced,” Industries Minister and CPI-M politburo member Nirupam Sen said after a meeting of the party’s state secretariat members.

However, Nanda found some support from another minor partner, Democratic Socialist Party (DSP), which has one legislator in the state.

DSP leader Prabodh Sinha, one of the losing candidates in the by-polls, said “legally and situationally” there were no grounds for the government to quit.

“But it is on the moral count that some people may feel that there is a need for taking a fresh mandate.”

Sinha, a former state minister, said people have expressed lack of confidence in the government in successive elections. “Be it the panchayat, municipality or the Lok Sabha elections, we have not done well. And now comes the defeat in the by-polls. So on moral grounds one may feel it is better to have the people’s mandate. This is democracy.”