Opposition CPM is facing unprecedented and wholly uncharacteristic internal chaos and factional feud in the wake of the alliance with Congress, and more after announcement of the candidate list.
The situation reached such a height and took such an ugly turn that while one of its sitting MLA from Kailasahar Mobaswar Ali left the CPM red faced and joined the Saffron brigade , the factional feuds forced the party bigwigs to change its two candidates- Manik Dey from Majlishpur and Aghore Debbarma from Asharambari .
As it happened, this was for the first time that under pressure from lower level cadres and due to factionalism the CPM , which always boasted of ‘discipline and a strong command structure’, had to change its candidates -already announced.
In what can be said as washing the dirty linen open in the public the two factions one opposing Manik Dey and the other supporting him took on each other on Friday in Majlishpur. The opposition camp alleged that Dey did not visit the constituency in the last five years even as the BJP kept on strengthening its base under minister Sushanta Chowdhury. The party cadres threatened that they might even leave the party and join BJP if Manik Dey was not changed.
In Asharambari also similar pressure mounted on Melarmath which ultimately felt it prudent to change the two veterans and then fielded one Sanjay Das for Majlishpur and Dilip Debbarma in Asharambari as the Left Front candidates changing Manik Dey and Aghore Debbarma, both former ministers.
This unprecedented decision and change in the already announced candidates were taken to arrest the further erosion of the party- that took momentum soon after the alliance with Congress had been declared- and also to pre-empt a Moboswar Ali repetition.
