People's Democracy

  CPI(M) Fields Young Candidates

MORE than 48 per cent of the CPI(M) candidates in the fray for the 58,357 seats are below the age of 40. Of the 49,342 CPI(M) candidates, only 2,978 (or 6 per cent) are service holders.  In the 1998 polls, the corresponding figure was 1998, or 10.8 per cent.  Until date, 6,283 CPI(M) candidates have won uncontested — 5,030 at the level of the Gram Panchayat, 836 in the Panchayat Samity, and 31 in the Zillah Parishad.

On the commencement of the campaign of the CPI(M) and the Left Front for the rural polls, the state unit of the CPI(M) released two booklets in Bengali on April 27 at the Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan. The first booklet is entitled: Not the Panchayat Alone: Power Must be in the People’s Hands; and the second booklet is called: The Fall-out of the Centre’s Economic Policy and the Left Front Government. (BP)