The CPM is set to purge its candidate list of comrades with a tainted image and elders, who will have to make way for cleaner, younger faces. The list is likely in the first week of March, with party state secretary Biman Bose having announced that it is almost final. Those on their way out include leaders who have become familiar candidates in their seats, party insiders say. Among them are at least two sitting MPs: Basudeb Acharia, who has had eight terms from Bankura, and Bansagopal Choudhury, who is approaching the end of his second term from Asansol. Both are being dropped because of their age, the insiders say. Other likely exits include former MPs frequently fielded but who lost in the last election. Lakshman Seth and Amitabha Nandy, strongmen respectively of East Midnapore (which includes Nandigram) and North 24-Paraganas, are being dropped because they face corruption charges, as is Tarit Topdar in Barrackpore seat, the sources say. Seth had three terms as MP before losing the last election in Tamluk; Nandy was Dum Dum’s sitting MP in 2009 when he lost; Topdar had six terms before losing in 2009. A strong contender for the Dum Dum ticket is Asim Dasgupta, a familiar face himself, having served as Bengal’s finance minister during the Left Front regime. Two younger faces in line for tickets are Sujan Chakraborty in Jadavpur and Sridip Bhattacharya in Howrah. “It’s been a tough decision but the party has hardly any option in an election crucial to its survival, not only in Bengal but overall,” a leader said. An indication of things to come was the nomination of Ritibrata Bandpadhyay to the Rajya Sabha, overruling many others. The change is largely considered driven by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who has been saying even in public that the rot within the party will have to be stemmed if the communists are to come back into the reckoning. “It was discussed in the last state committee meeting that the party would project fresh and clean faces,” said Ashok Bhattcharya, former Bengal minister and part of the CPM state committee. “But we will not plead with any filmstar or player or author to be a candidate for us. All new faces will be from within the party.” Dasgupta would not, however, name any of the likely candidates “until the party announces them”. Should the Dum Dum ticket go to Dasgupta, the MIT alumnus’s likely opponent would be the Trinamool Congress’s professor Sougata Roy, sitting MP. Dasgupta not only carries a clean image but has remained politically active when many other comrades have gone into a shell since the Left Front’s fall. Whenever Mamata has complained about having to bear a debt burden of Rs 2 lakh crore left by the Left Front government, it has been Dasgupta who has been countering that the present government’s borrowings are higher than the Left Front’s was. If the party does field him, it would mean a campaign livened up with figures on state finances. And if it fields Sridip Bhattacharya and Sujan Chakraborty, it would be in line with its stated objective of fresh candidates with long records in the party. The party has already experimented with Bhattacharya, having fielded him in a Howrah bypoll, which he lost by a narrow margin. He and Sujan Chakraborty are both state committee members who have impressed the leadership with their organisational skills in the party’s darkest period. “I have been asked to be a candidate. I am still considering it as I also have orgnaisational responsibilities,” Chakraborty said. Even in Burdwan, where it hold three seats, the party is looking at new faces, one of these in Bansagopal’s Asansol. Said district CPM secretary Amal Haldar, also a state committee member, “The party is working extensively on selection. I returned from Delhi today. We are bringing in people who face no allegations, and younger faces.” The target age group is 40 to 50. Significantly, the average age of the party’s current and earlier MPs has been over 60. “The party will highlight those who have a good academic record, those who have done a lot of work in the organisation, and become popular among the cadre,” a CPM leader said. “It has decided to ignore those who have become an embarrassment.”
