Siliguri, March 6: If getting started is a job half done, then the Left Front should easily retain the Siliguri and Phansidewa Assembly seats. While its opponents dither over naming their candidates for the two seats, the Left Front has taken a head start and is already into the campaigning mode.

Urban development minister Asok Bhattacharya and saha-sabhadhipati of the Siliguri Mahakuma Parishad Chotan Kisku, both from the CPM, are Left Front candidates for the Siliguri and Phansidewa constituencies.

?They (CPM) have been campaigning for the last five years while we will get two months. But that is okay. After all, unlike in the past, the voters today are very conscious. Nobody will be able to get away by telling lies,? said Nantu Paul, one of the three Congress contenders for the Siliguri seat. The Congress is not expected to come out with its names before March 15, which will leave the party only about one-and-half months for campaigning.

The Darjeeling district unit of the Trinamul Congress, too, seemed unperturbed. ?Our list should be out in the next two days. However, it is not true that we have been sitting idle,? said Gautam Deb, its president.

The CPM, on the other hand, is yet to lose from either of the two seats since 1977. ?To take on an opponent of the stature of Asokda (who has won three terms) requires some doing, but our state-level leaders either seem to have resigned themselves to their fates, or are an ignorant bunch,? said a Congress party worker.

The CPM, on its part, has roped in all its frontal organisations for campaigning. In fact, it was the Citu ?the party?s labour wing ? that effectively kick started Bhattacharya?s campaign on February 21, five days after the party came out with its list of poll candidates.

?Now that a ban on defacing of walls has been imposed, we will be doing more door-to-door campaigns, besides distributing leaflets,? said state secretariat member Jibitesh Sarkar.