Calcutta, Jan. 1: Several CPM leaders have demanded the reinstatement of Anil Basu, who was expelled from the party for making disparaging remarks about Mamata Banerjee before the 2011 Assembly elections, to prop up the organisation in a former bastion that has now fallen to Trinamul.

The majority of Hooghly's 63-member district committee is of the opinion that the services of Basu, who won the Arambagh Lok Sabha seat seven consecutive times from 1984, would be needed to stop the steady erosion in the Left's support base in the district.

'Let's forget the past. Anilda apologised for what he did. The time has come to think about taking him back into the party,' said Arindam Bhattacharya, a CPM district committee member in Hooghly, this afternoon.

'Veterans like Anilda are required to steer the organisation at a time we are going through a crisis. People are disenchanted with us and we need to recover ground fast,' he added.

Another CPM district committee member said a letter had been written to the state leadership, demanding that Basu be taken back into the party.

The demand is likely to be discussed during the three-day district conference in Chinsurah beginning February 9, CPM sources said. Party state secretary Biman Bose is expected to attend the session.

Basu, 71, who held the record for the highest victory margin in a Lok Sabha election (close to 7.5 lakh votes) till last year's polls, said he was happy that many in the CPM wanted him back.

'It's good that some of my former party colleagues are pleading with the Alimuddin Street bosses for my reinstatement. I am willing to return because I am an out-and-out communist,' Basu told The Telegraph over the phone from his home.

A member of the CPM state secretariat, the highest decision-making body at the state level, said Basu's re-induction was 'required'.

'In Hooghly, particularly in Arambagh, our organisation is dwindling by the day. This was not the case when Anilda held sway. Now, all three MPs from the district belong to Trinamul. Of Hooghly's 18 MLAs, 16 are from the ruling party,' he said on condition of anonymity.

The state secretariat member said the situation had come to such a pass that CPM workers were deserting the party because 'we are unable to protect them from Trinamul's onslaught'.

Asked if the leadership was considering Basu's reinstatement, Rabin Deb, another state secretariat member, said he was not aware of such a development. He, however, added: 'According to our policy, an expelled member's reinstatement can be considered if he or she writes to us saying he or she has rectified himself or herself.'

In 2004, Basu won the Arambagh Lok Sabha seat by 7,44,464 votes, the biggest victory margin since 1962. In the 2014 general election, Trinamul's Aparupa Poddar broke the record from the same seat, bagging 7,48,764 votes.