File Photo: CPI (M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury
CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury today said the semi-finals of the West Bengal Assembly elections will be held this year during the local bodies polls in the state.
"There will be local bodies polls by year end. It will be a sort of semi-finals to the assembly elections," he told the media in Lucknow.
Mr Yechury said the Left Front is unitedly making preparations for the assembly elections.
"...preparations are on," he said in response to a question on the preparations for the assembly polls next year.
His remarks came against the backdrop of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee challenging BJP, CPI-M and Congress to come together and asserting her party Trinamool Congress would go it alone and defeat them.
"BJP, CPI-M and Congress have no ideology and morality. They have become irrelevant in Bengal. They only resort to spreading canards against us. They have no place in Bengal," Ms Banerjee had said earlier this week.
She had accused the CPI-M of doing nothing for the state during its 34-year rule.
"Whatever was left of the party (CPI-M) is now over as it has sold itself to BJP. TMC will not bow down to BJP, neither to Congress nor CPI-M," she had said.