Looking for a way back in Bengal, CPI(M) sticks to bringing young leaders to the fore

A decade and a half out of power in West Bengal and having been reduced to zero seats in both the Lok Sabha and the Assembly, the CPI(M) has been trying to effect a generational shift in its leadership for a few years now.

Despite the strategy of backing the youth not working in the 2021 Assembly elections, the party is sticking to it. At the mega rally organised by the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), the CPI(M)’s youth wing, at the Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata last Sunday, instead of party veterans the focus was on the party’s young and upcoming leaders.

The DYFI’s “Insaaf Brigade” rally was a culmination of its two-month-long statewide march — focussing on jobs and other livelihood issues — that began in November 2023 from Cooch Behar and concluded late December in Kolkata’s Jadavpur area. With party veterans Biman Bose, Surjya Kanta Misra and Sujan Chakraborty sitting at the front row on the podium, but youth leaders holding the fort, the DYFI’s rallying call was, “Jouboner daake, jonogoner brigade (Call of the youth is for a people’s Brigade)”.

At the rally, the spotlight was on several senior DYFI leaders such as Minakshi Mukherjee, A A Rahim, Himagnaraj Bhattacharya, and Kalatan Dasgupta, along with prominent names from the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) such as Srijan Bhattacharya and Pratikur Rahman. The official DYFI Twitter account highlighted the rally’s purpose, emphasising the need in West Bengal for jobs and redress for migrant labourers, unemployed teachers, and other oppressed communities.

DYFI state secretary Minakshi Mukherjee, 39, who the party has been promoting as the face to take on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee — she came third behind BJP’s Suvendu Adhikari and Mamata