The CPM has taken strong exception to Home Minister P Chidambaram's remarks that the Left has lost its popularity in West Bengal.

"It's another thing if the Home Minister is trying to please his colleague, but he is totally doing disgrace to history," CPM leader Nilotpal Basu told NDTV.

"Everybody knows that the CPI Maoists comes from the Naxalites and the Naxalites actually went out from the CPIM to form the party. For twenty years the Maoists were never there, because of the land reforms and ideological struggle they were never in Bengal," he added.

Basu said the CPI (M) has been the Maoists' biggest target and that no other party has sacrificed so many people.

Basu's comments come in the wake of the Home Minister's remarks in an interview to a national daily. "Mamata is articulating her party's point of view, and that appears to have found resonance across Bengal. It is for the ruling party to respond to that call," Chidambaram told the daily.

"The CPM and the CPI (Maoist) did not confront each other all these years. They thought they were on the same side of the line and that the enemy was Congress. The CPM is paying the price for 20 years of living together," he said.