The first non-Congress government was formed on 1 March 1967 with Ajoy Mukherjee of Bangla Congress from the United Front (also consisting of CPI, AIFB & BPI) as the chief-minister & Jyoti Basu of CPI(M) from the United Left Front (also consisting of RSP, SUCI(C), SSP, MFB, WPI & RCPI) as the deputy chief minister.

Frequent strikes & assaulting of big businessmen and industrialists by Communist labour unions was causing them to gradually shift their operations out of the state.

In spite of requests from industries minister, Bangla Congress leader Sushil Kumar Dhara, deputy chief-minister Basu refused to remove Banerjee from the labour ministry on grounds of CPI(M)'s ideological similarities with SUCI(C).

The Governor dissolved the Ajoy Mukherjee-Jyoti Basu led government without conducting a no-trust vote in the Legislative Assembly & sworn in Ghosh as the new chief minister on 21 November 1967.

Mukherjee & Basu put aside their differences & together organised protests against Ghosh's government, leading to increasing political violence between the cadres of CPI(M) & Congress.