The Communist Party of India (Marxist), West Bengal is the West Bengal state wing of Communist Party of India (Marxist) and a recognised national party. The party has been the longest formally the governing party in West Bengal Legislative Assembly from 1977 to 2011 and has significant representation of the state in Rajya Sabha.[2] It leads the Left Front and Secular Democratic Alliance along with Indian National Congress.
In the following period the Communist Party underwent a vertical a split in the Communist Party of India in 1964 with a section of the party including Jyoti Basu going on to form the Communist Party of India (Marxist). There were several ongoing ideological conflicts between sections within the Communist Party about the nature of the Indian State and the characterisation and method of interaction with the Indian National Congress, about the approach towards the ongoing debate between the Soviet Union and China and with regards to the handling of the border disputes between India and China.
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These debates were further exacerbated by the food movement in West Bengal and brought to the forefront by the rising border tensions between India and China.[3] The Communist Party had also become the second largest party in the Lok Sabha following the 1962 Indian general election with nearly 10% vote share which is described to have brought prominence to the internal divisions of the party.[4]
In the West Bengal Legislative Assembly election of 1967, fourteen opposition parties contested through two pre-poll political alliances;[5] the CPI-M led United Left Front and the CPI and Bangla Congress (splinter of the Congress party formed in 1966) led People's United Left Front.[6] The CPI-M became the second largest party outstripping its former party, the CPI.
For the 1977 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election, negotiations between the Janata Party and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) broke down.[7] This led to a three sided contest between the Indian National Congress, the Janata Party and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) led Left Front coalition. The results of the election was a surprising sweep for the Left Front winning 230 seats out of 290 with the CPI-M winning an absolute majority on its own, Jyoti Basu became the chief minister of West Bengal.
The state saw rapid developments in this period, with the Land Reforms and the Panchayat System being two of the many notable ones. In this time, the state had become one of the leaders in agricultural output, being the leading producer of rice and the second leading producer of potatoes.[8] In the first term of the coming to power, the Left Front government under Basu initiated a number of agrarian and institutional reforms which resulted in reduction of poverty rates, an exponential rise in agricultural production and decrease in political polarisation.[9][10][11] It also enabled the large scale adoption of technological advancements which had earlier been brought in through the Green Revolution in India in the 1960s.[9][10] The agricultural growth jumped from an annual average of 0.6% between 1970–1980 to over 7% between 1980–1990 and the state was described as an agricultural success story of the 1980s.[10][12] During this period, the state of West Bengal moved from being a food importer to a food exporter and became the largest producer of rice outstripping the states of Andhra Pradesh and Punjab which had previously held the status.[12] The Human Development Index was also noted to have improved at a much faster rate than in other states, growing from being the lowest in the country in 1975 to above the national average in 1990.[13]
In 2000, Jyoti Basu resigned as the chief minister. He was succeeded by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.[14] Unlike other orthodox leaders, Buddhadeb was more open to market and technological reforms. He attempted to industrialize West Bengal by bringing a Tata motors plant in Singur but this erupted a huge controversy. Buddhadeb's government requested farmers to give the land, which sparked huge protests. Later Tata Group ultimately backed out of the project. There was also violence in Nandigram as well, in which many protesters died due to police firing.[15]
Violence, economic stagnation, the surge of Mamata Banerjee and her TMC led to the decline of support of Buddhadeb and the CPI(M), even among the core voters like peasants and workers. A demand for change started, which eventually led to the fall of the 34-years long Left Front government in 2011.
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