Kolkata:
Mamata Banerjee's victory in Bengal seems to be turning the tide in favour of early polls.
After Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, it's now Home Minister P Chidambaram's turn to declare that the Left has lost its popularity in the state.
In an interview to a national daily, the Home Minister has said, "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."
"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.
Will West Bengal witness snap polls?Partners in West Bengal's ruling Left Front are demanding snap polls after their rout in the assembly by-polls.
The West Bengal Socialist Party has already made up its mind on the issue. The RSP will raise it in the next Left Front meeting. CPM leaders say calling snap polls would be an admission of failure and therefore counterproductive. Assembly elections in West Bengal are due May 2011.
Though there has been no word from Buddhadeb Bhattacharya on the bypoll results, his ministers have begun to talk. Kiranmoy Nanda, fisheries, says his party, the WBSP, has decided to ask the Left Front to go for snap polls in the state.
"There was a meeting of my party and we have decided to tell the Left Front chairman at the meeting of Left Front we should go for snap elections. Miserable results have come. People's verdict is against us. We should go to snap elections," said Kiranmoy.
Another partner, the RSP, too, is treading the same path.
"It is a very serious question. The existence of this government is being questioned by the people, a section of the people - by the opposition and political thinkers across the country," said Kshiti Goswami, PWD Minister and RSP leader.
The CPM is divided. Some fear snap polls would be counterproductive.
"If we discontinue or quit the government, how to face the next election? People will say you have failed. Why you have come to seek support? Why we should support you? This question will come," said Rabin Deb, CPM MLA.
But snap polls will be discussed at the CPM state committee meeting end-November. The demand for early elections was a murmur after the Left's Lok Sabha debacle. That murmur has now become a rumble and may soon escalate into a roar.