While maintaining a brave front over retaining its 1996 tally of 33 seats in the face of an anti-incumbency wave in most parts of the country, the Left Front in West Bengal is deeply worried at the massive thrust by the Wet Bengal Trinamul Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ..

The CPI(M) may have added one more seat to take its total to 24 by wresting the Jangipur seat from the Congress, but the fat is that in at least 16 seats, the combined vote of the Trinamul, BJP and the Congress had exceeded the winning margin of the Left Front candidates. This has set the alarm bells ringing in the Left camp.

While it was more or less known that the voters in Calcutta and the neighbourig districts like Howrah, Hooghly, North 24-Parganas and South 24-Parganas would be swayed by anti-establishment sentiments roused to a feverish pitch by Mamata Banerjee, the results showed that the Left base has started eroding elsewhere too. In seats like Hooghly, Diamond Harbour, Krishnagar, Nabadwip and Contai, the winning margin of the CPI(M) candidates had sharply dropped and the party candidates won just because the contest was triangular.

More than the Trinamul occupying the space occupied by the Congress, the CPI(M) is concerned over the emergence of the BJP. Sharing seats with the Trinamul and focusing on 13 seats against 41 in the last election, the BJP not only wrested the prestigious Dum  Dum seats from the Marxists, but also pushed the Congress to third position in Krishnagar, Burdwan,  Bolpur, Durgapur, Bankura, Bibhum, Katwa, Berhampore, Joynagar, Arambagh and Midnapore.

... With the panchayat elections due in the State sometime around June this year, the ascendance of the BJP and the Trinamul is a cause of concern for the Left camp. To a sizeable section in the Congress, any form of  cooperation with the Leftists at the national level would further endanger the party's prospects in the panchayat election in the near future as well as the Assembly elections three years from now.

Meanwhile, the stunning success of the Trinamul has created confusion in the Congress ranks and it is being speculated that a large-scale exodus from the Congress to the Trinamul ... cannot be ruled out.                                                        (Source: The Hindustan Times, 5 March, 1998)