Post-independence and Cold War Contemporary history The Left Front (Bengali: বামফ্রন্ট) is an alliance of left-wing political parties in the Indian state of West Bengal.

The Left Front ruled the state of West Bengal for seven consecutive terms 1977–2011, five with Jyoti Basu as Chief Minister and two under Buddhadev Bhattacharya.

[1] However, ahead of the March 1977 Lok Sabha election the left parties under the leadership of CPI(M) decided to form an alliance just amongst themselves, based on past negative experiences in collaboration with centrist anti-Congress forces.

[6] Ahead of the subsequent June 1977 West Bengal Legislative Assembly elections seat-sharing talks between the Left Front and the Janata Party broke down.

[3] The seat-sharing within the Left Front was based on the 'Promode Formula', named after the CPI(M) State Committee Secretary Promode Dasgupta.

[8] Under the Promode Formula the party with the highest share of votes in a constituency would continue to field candidates there, under its own election symbol and manifesto.

[9] The electoral result came as a surprise to the Left Front itself, as it had offered 52% of the seats in the pre-electoral seat-sharing talks with the Janata Party.

[14] Prior to the arrival of the Left Front government, the political environment of West Bengal was chaotic, and the new cabinet struggled to establish order.

[8] The Left Front government was also credited with coping with the refugee situation created by the Bangladesh Liberation War and severe floods.

[21] 16 candidates were fielded by the remainder of Left Front partners (RCPI, WBSP, DSP, BBC, MFB) and contested as independents.

[28][29] Several leaders of minor Left Front parties contested on the CPI(M) symbol, such as Kiranmoy Nanda (WBSP), Gouranga Samanta (BBC) and Prabodh Chandra Sinha (DSP).

[31] Ahead of the 1996 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election, WBSP had merged into the Samajwadi Party which became a member of the Left Front.

[33] The electoral losses were primarily felt in Calcutta and the industrial areas, and nine incumbent Left Front ministers failed to get re-elected.

[35] The Left Front had been able to reach consensus on its candidates well before the other major parties, and subsequently the CPI(M) election campaign came off to an early start.

[35][37] A mammoth United Front (the national alliance backed by the left at the time) election meeting was held in Calcutta on 31 January 1998 with Jyoti Basu as the main speaker.

[42][43] The Left Front fielded nine new candidates; two sitting CPI(M) MPs were replaced (Ananda Pathak from Darjeeling and Ajoy Mukherjee from Krishnanagar).

[31][44] In 2000, the WBSP was reconstituted after Amar Singh took over the Samajwadi Party and Kiranmoy Nanda (Fisheries Minister of Left Front government 1982–2011) broke away.

[58] Most of the incumbent ministers were re-elected, exceptions being Prabodh Chandra Sinha (Parliamentary Affairs, DSP) and Mohammed Amin (Labour, CPI(M)).

[13] On 8 September 2008 the Left Front and the opposition All India Trinamool Congress reached an agreement on Singur dispute but in the next month Tata Motors announced that it withdrew from West Bengal.

[65] In the 2011 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election the Left Front failed to gain a majority of seats and the 34-year streak of continuous state government was broken.

[69] In 2013 the Left Front was routed in the elections to the Howrah Municipal Corporation, losing control over the town for the first time in three decades.

[81] Ahead of the 2016 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election the Left Front presented a first list with 116 candidates on 7 March 2016.

[87] Ahead of the 2016 election Nanda and his SP again resigned from the Left Front, citing opposition to the electoral tie-up with the Indian National Congress.

In the months preceding the Assembly Elections, CPI(M) held rallies, conducted volunteer work and other activities in different parts of East and West Midnapore, in areas which had been difficult to access for them for over 10 years due to crude impeachment against the red jhanda by the TMC and Maoists alike.

[94] In the preceding two years, after the reopening of all the party offices, the cadres were actively involved in various social welfare schemes with the participation of the youth in organising community kitchens, free ration and vegetable markets, safe housing, distribution of kits to students for studies and clothes to the underprivileged.

50 health clinics and safe houses for the poor who cannot afford expensive medical care facilities amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the state.

The CPI(M) had converted nearly 30 party offices into safe homes for poor people who did not have extra room at their dwellings for quarantining in case of COVID-19 infection.

The Indian Secular Front led by the Furfura Sharif cleric Abbas Siddique also joined the Mahajot and had finalized its seat-sharing capacities with the alliance.

The runner ups of CPIM stood as follows: The CPI(M) had, for a long time been running the Sramajibi Canteens and the Red Volunteers programme and continued to do the same, even after bagging only 4.6% of the vote share.

[100][101] As Dasgupta suffered ailments in the latter part of his life, Biman Bose held the position as Acting Chairman of the Left Front Committee.