The contentious issue of redistribution of seats among Left Front constituents from a present-day perspective and not based on what it was in 1977 will be one of the key points of discussion at the CPM’s four-day state conference that begins at Dankuni in Hooghly on Saturday.

CPM sources have said the draft resolution for the 27th state conference mentioned the need to analyse Left Front constituents’ strength and based on the assessment, a redistribution of seats for Assembly and Lok Sabha polls was inevitable.

“The Left Front had successfully ruled Bengal for 34 years. However, it is time for review as some allies of the CPM have lost considerable strength. They are unable to bring many people to Front programmes. At the same time, to revitalise the Left, we need to broaden the eight-member Front by including forces like the CPI(ML)-Liberation,” a CPM leader said.

The call to reassess the strength of each of the eight Left Front constituents is an admission that every party, including the CPM, has experienced a sharp decline in its support base and organisational capability since the loss of power in Bengal in 2011.

When the Front was ousted in 2011, its vote share was 39.68 per cent but in the 2021 Assembly polls, it dropped to 5.67 per cent. The vote share of the CPI, Forward Bloc and the RSP was 0.2 per cent, 0.53 per cent and 0.21 per cent, respectively.

“Electoral setbacks since 2011 demand a relook at the situation. Does the organisational strength of Front partners match their demand for seats?” the leader added.

The CPM, Forward Bloc, RSP, Marxist Forward Bloc, Revolutionary Communist Party of India (RCPI) and the Biplabi Bangla Congress had formed the Left Front in Bengal to fight the Congress when the Emergency was nearing its end in 1977.

However, when alliance talks with the Janata Party collapsed before the 1977 Bengal elections, the then CPM stalwart, Promode Dasgupta, chalked out a seat-sharing formula for the six Front allies.

Dasgupta’s formula allowed a party to stake claim to a constituency based on its vote share. The party with the highest vote share in a particular constituency was allowed to contest on its symbol in the 1977 elections.

However, some adjustments had to be made in the 1982 polls as the CPI had joined the Front by then. To accommodate the new ally, the partners had to sacrifice a few seats. The formula has stayed on with a few exceptions made to facilitate poll adjustments with the Congress in the 2016 Assembly polls and thereafter.

The formula is now being questioned within the CPM after the party faced problems convincing the allies to spare seats to accommodate the Congress first and later the ISF in the electoral battle against the Trinamool Congress and the BJP. Further, the CPM feels it alone shoulders the burden of making Front programmes successful.

While drawing up the list of candidates for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls in Bengal, two Left allies gave the CPM a tough time over vacating seats for the Congress.

The RSP did not want to spare the Alipurduar seat, while the Forward Bloc remained rigid on Purulia. The Congress wanted to contest from these two constituencies but the allies refused to budge.

Forward Bloc leader Naren Chattopadhyay had then told The Telegraph that his party “did not want any understanding with the Congress and the ISF”.

Under such circumstances, the draft resolution mentions that the “1977 formula has lost its significance” and asks whether allies are right in referring to it while staking claims for seats.

A CPM leader from north Bengal said some Front leaders basked in the glory of the past while ignoring the reality that smaller Left parties have shrunk to exist only in sporadic pockets.

“Take the case of Coochbehar. Under Left Front stalwart Kamal Guha, the Forward Bloc was a major political player in the region. After Kamal Guha’s son Udayan Guha joined the TMC in 2015, Forward Bloc cadres also moved with him,” the leader said and added that the resolution also admitted the CPM’s decline.

Asked whether the state conference would discuss the relevance of the 1977 formula, CPM state secretary Md Salim said: “Yes, we will discuss our part.”

But will there be any discussion on this issue with the CPM’s allies?

“In January, we decided to review the situation bilaterally with partners in March. In between, the partners will do a self-assessment of their situation. At the state conference, our party will do an assessment. Thereafter, we will discuss it with our allies in March, and in April, there will be a renegotiation of the seat-sharing formula on present terms,” Salim said and added that the conference would also set the ball rolling for the preparations for the 2026 Bengal elections.