On 6 January 1982 the West Bengal government requested that assembly elections be held on 15 March 1982, due to the approaching Monsoon season starting in April.

[3] The Left Front campaign was heavily centred on the success of its land reform program & its empowerment of rural areas by conducting elections to the newly formed 3-tier panchayat system in 1978.

[10][11] Organizations calling for a poll boycott included the Pranta Parishad and the Gorkha National Liberation Front of Subhash Ghisingh.

[13] The CPI(M) Information Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya lost the Cossipur seat to Congress(I) candidate Prafulla Kanti Ghosh by 728 votes.

[6][13] The CPI(M) Education Minister Partha De, noted for his policy of removing English language from the primary school curriculum, lost the Bankura seat.

[6] The incumbent Food Minister, the Revolutionary Communist Party of India leader Sudhindranath Kumar, lost his seat Howrah Central.

[14] Finance Minister and CPI(M) heavy-weight Ashok Mitra lost the Rash Behari Avenue seat to Congress(I) candidate Haimi Bose.

[6] Santosh Rana of the Provisional Central Committee, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) lost his Gopiballavpur seat to CPI(M).