Kolkata, Feb 22, 2025, IANS

Kolkata, Feb 22 (IANS) The crucial state conference of CPI(M) in West Bengal will start at Dankuni in Hooghly district on Saturday to choose a new leadership for the state Assembly polls in 2026. Starting from Saturday, the 27th state conference of the party will continue till February 25 and end with an open session where the new state committee of the party will be announced. Party insiders said that the state conference this time is especially crucial not just because of the West Bengal Assembly elections next year but also because the party's seat tallies ended with zeros for three consecutive elections namely Lok Sabha polls in 2019 and 2024 and the Assembly elections in 2021. "The factor that is worrying is the continuing decline in the party's vote share in all these elections following which the deposits of most of the party candidates were forfeited. A major reason behind this erosion was our fast loosening grip on our traditional vote banks among minority as well as socially and economically backward classes. The state conference starting today will mainly focus on the strategy to be adopted to win back the confidence of this section of voters," said a state committee member of the party. The second area of focus, party insiders said, will be drawing out a campaign strategy combating the growing trend of binary polarisation of politics in West Bengal between the Trinamool Congress and BJP. In the party's latest internal document, which analysed the election strategy, the CPI(M) leadership had admitted that Trinamool Congress has emerged as the biggest beneficiary of this trend of binary polarisation in the state. "In West Bengal, the party has been fighting the Trinamool Congress and BJP for the past decade. While doing so, the party at all levels must pay more attention to counter the BJP politically and ideologically. This is important since secular-minded people see the Trinamool Congress as an effective counter to the BJP because of the binary politics," the CPI-M's internal document read.