CPM flags dot the Ramakrishna Vidyalaya grounds in Lalgarh, where the Left will hold a rally on Friday. (Amit Datta)

Lalgarh, Dec. 30: Lalgarh has been painted in red.

Red flags and festoons are occupying pride of place in every nook and corner of the West Midnapore pocket. Bike-borne cadres are going from door to door distributing leaflets urging people to join the Left rally there tomorrow. The local market is flooded with posters making the same request.

The CPM is organising a rally in Lalgarh, till the other day a Maoist hotbed, after one and a half years. In the past four months, the Marxists have overrun Lalgarh and its neighbouring areas but tomorrow’s rally is the Left’s first public show of strength there.

Party activists have requested local people to guard the area tonight along with cadres to stave off possible Maoist attacks before the rally.

Dhanapati (name changed), a Lalgarh resident, said around 20 bike-borne cadres came to his house this morning and handed him a leaflet. “They told me to attend tomorrow’s rally at the Ramakrishna Vidyalaya grounds.”

He said he had no option but to attend the meeting. “The CPM knows that I had participated in rallies organised by the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities during the Maoist movement here. But the CPM had spared my life after recapturing (neighbouring) Dharampur (in September). I have to attend tomorrow’s rally. I am living at their mercy,” said Dhanapati, a farmer.

Thousands of other villagers living in Lalgarh and its neighbouring areas have been handed the leaflets, which say in Bengali: “Lalgarh samabeshe jog din (participate in the Lalgarh rally).”

A local CPM leader said Lalgarh was “under our control”. He, however, said the party was “not pressuring anyone to attend the rally”. He said the CPM’s objective was to organise a bigger crowd than that at Mamata Banerjee’s Lalgarh rally on August 9. He said cadres had been “deputed to take care of the security of those attending tomorrow’s rally”.

According to party sources, CPM activists and supporters in neighbouring Goaltore, Salboni and Binpur have been directed to participate in the rally.

Another CPM leader said it was initially decided that Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Biman Bose would be present at the rally but the plan had to be scrapped because “intelligence agencies did not give the green signal citing security reasons”.

Sushanta Ghosh, the minister of state for paschimanchal development, will address the rally. West Midnapore CPM secretary Dipak Sarkar will also be present.

Party sources said the rally would begin at 9am so that those attending could return home before sundown. “Several people will have to return home through jungle routes where Maoists are still active,” a CPM leader said.