NEW DELHI: Acknowledging internal concerns, the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation (CPI-ML-Liberation), hours after releasing the list of its candidates for the Bihar assembly elections on Saturday, admitted the final list reflects certain "imbalances," with many deserving candidates unable to secure a spot. The party attributed this to the challenge of balancing local aspirations with the constraints of coalition politics and a small seat share.
It said that the list comprising 20 names falls short of expectations among party activists and supporters, who were hoping for a broader contest across more districts. "Many of our activists and well-wishers were expecting the list of Communist Party of India -Marxist Leninist- Liberation CPIML candidates in #biharelection2025 to be a bit longer with a few more names from a few more districts. That did not materialise, but we are glad that we have been successful in ensuring a slightly bigger coalition this time with the participation of a few more parties," General Secretary of CPI-ML (Liberation) Dipankar Bhattacharyya posted on Facebook.
He said that the Mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) partners had decided that there would be no 'friendly fight' in any seat and issues between major players in the opposition bloc--Congress and RJD--would be resolved. "On our part, we have stuck to that principle in spite of having a limited tally of only twenty seats. We hope the INC and RJD and any other party currently locked in a possible 'friendly fight' situation are able to sort out their seat-sharing problems and ensure complete unity by the time of withdrawal of candidates," his post on Facebook read.
Bhattacharyya further said that his party list obviously has several imbalances as it could not give an opportunity to many deserving comrades. "Balancing the local constituency-level aspirations with the larger question of representation is a very tough ask, especially with such a limited number of seats and within the constraints of a coalition arrangement. Hope all our comrades and friends will understand the situation and extend their generous support to all our candidates in this crucial electoral battle," he also said.
Exuding confidence of victory, the Left party leader added that for a communist party like ours, every form of struggle comes with attendant risks and persecution of the powers that be, and elections are all the more so. "To take the example of Bhore(SC) in Gopalganj, Comrade Jitendra Paswan, our proposed candidate from Bhore(SC) was detained after filing nomination and we had to field Comrade Dhananjay, former president of JNUSU as our eventual candidate to carry forward the battle for justice in Bhore on behalf of all victims of political vendetta, state repression and feudal-communal violence. In 1995 Comrade Umesh Paswan was our first candidate from this seat who had polled nearly 16,000 votes and finished third, but died a martyr only two years later," he also said.
The CPI-ML(Liberation) election campaign is not about seat sharing and electoral engineering; it is about withstanding this repression and overcoming serial hurdles in an extremely unequal battle, he added.
