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How did West Bengal fare during 34 years of Left rule? Here’s the good and the bad

Between 1977 and 2011, West Bengal experienced a steady decline in its poverty rate. This was reflected in the increasing share of the Left Front’s popular vote.

West Bengal has had five distinct phases of politics since Independence. In the first article in this series, I covered the period from BC Roy to SS Ray. In this, I look at the uninterrupted 34-year period of Left rule from 1977 to 2011.

The Bamfront comes to power 

Contrary to its own expectations, the six-party Left Front coalition—led by the CPI(M), with the All India Forward Bloc (AIFB), Revolutionary Socialist party (RSP), Marxist Forward Bloc (MFB), Revolutionary Communist party of India (RCPI) and Biplobi Bangla Congress (BBC)—was voted to power in the post-Emergency 1977 elections.

The CPI(M) secured a comfortable majority of 178 by itself in the 294-member house. The partners’ tally was: AIFB-25, RSP-20, MFB-three, RCPI-three and BBC-one. They came to power with CPI(M)’s Jyoti Basu as CM.

Incidentally, the Janata party, which was offered 52 per cent of the seats in the pre-electoral seat-sharing, won only 29 of the 289 seats it contested.

The erstwhile ruling party, the Congress, came a distant third with just 20 seats. From the 1982 elections, the Communist Party of India (CPI), Democratic Socialist Party (DSP), and West Bengal Socialist Party (WBSP) also joined the coalition.

The WBSP joined the Samajwadi party in 1996, and thus it too became a part of the coalition. The Left Front, colloquially called the Bamfront ruled the state for the next 34 years. It was the longest democratically-elected communist regime in the world.

Also read: West Bengal has only had 9 CMs since Independence—and 5 phases of politics

How did the Left Front achieve this democratic miracle?

It had pro-people policies. It carefully cultivated a Bhadralok image and had an ability to build a broad social consensus.

It also controlled patronage over the resources of the three-tier panchayat. It had a party-based organisation working with all sections of society—from Students’ Federation of India (SFI) among students, the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) amongst the farmers, the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) in the industrial belt and Employees Coordination Committee among government staff.

It was a well-oiled party machinery. It began well, but over time party workers became the point of contact for everything. Someone wanting to build/repair a house was directed........

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