Legislative Assembly elections were held in the

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

n state of

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the four ...

in 1982. The Left Front, which had won the 1977 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election, emerged victoriously. The

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British ...

emerged as the main opposition party in the state, as the

Janata Party The Janata Party ( JP, lit. ''People's Party'') was a political party that was founded as an amalgam of Indian political parties opposed to the Emergency that was imposed between 1975 and 1977 by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of the Indian Nat ...

was disintegrating.

Background

On 6 January 1982 the West Bengal government requested that assembly elections be held on 15 March 1982, due to the approaching

Monsoon season The wet season (sometimes called the Rainy season) is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. It is the time of year where the majority of a country's or region's annual precipitation occurs. Generally, the sea ...

starting in April. However, in the end the election was held in May 1982, parallel to state assembly elections in

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South C ...

Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh (; ; "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen mountain states and is characterized by an extreme landscape featuring several peak ...

and

Haryana Haryana (; ) is an Indian state located in the northern part of the country. It was carved out of the former state of East Punjab on 1 Nov 1966 on a linguistic basis. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with less than 1.4% () of India's land ...

Left Front

Ahead of the 1982 assembly elections, the Left Front had gained three new members; the Communist Party of India (CPI), the West Bengal Socialist Party (WBSP) and the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP). Some of the older, smaller Left Front constituents were uncomfortable with the expansion of the alliance, claiming that CPI(M) was diluting it politically. There were also disagreements on distribution of ministerial portfolios after the expansion of the alliance.

Congress (I)-Congress (S) alliance

As of the early 1980s the

Congress(I) The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Em ...

was heavily divided in West Bengal. Divisions existed in each of the appointed ''ad hoc'' district committees across the state. In 1978

Sharad Pawar Sharad Govindrao Pawar (Marathi pronunciation: �əɾəd̪ pəʋaːɾ born 12 December 1940) is an Indian politician. He has served as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra on four occasions. He has held the posts of Minister of Defence and Mini ...

named former West Bengal Congress leader Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi as president of the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee (Socialist). However Congress(I) and Congress(S) contested the 1982 in alliance. The IC(S) performed poorly in the 1982 assembly elections and a merger of the West Bengal units of the (S) and Congress(I) took place soon after the 1982 polls. Congress(I) emerged as the largest opposition party in the election. Most of the seats previously held by the

were won by Congress(I). With the Janata Party eradicated from the assembly, West Bengal politics became polarized between the Left Front and Congress(I) for many years to come.

Bharatiya Janata Party

The

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major List of political parties in India, Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the List of ruling p ...

contested the West Bengal assembly election for the first time in 1982. The primary objective of the party was to create a nucleus for a future third force in West Bengal politics. The party supported the call of the West Bengal government to hold the elections in March 1982.

Gorkhaland agitation

In the wake of the 1980 Gorkhaland movement, a poll boycott campaign took place in the Darjeeling hills with the slogan "No State, No Vote". Organizations calling for a poll boycott included the Pranta Parishad and the

Gorkha National Liberation Front Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) is a political party in the Darjeeling District of West Bengal, India. It was formed in 1980 by Subhash Ghisingh with the objective of demanding a Gorkhaland state within India. Early history Part of th ...

of Subhash Ghisingh.''India Today''.
Nepalis: Demanding a voice
' Voter participation in Darjeeling stood at 59.40%, compared to the statewide 76.96%. CPI(M) emerged as the sole party of relevance in the hills to oppose a separate Gorkhaland state. CPI(M) won three out of the four assembly seats in the Nepali-dominated areas, the fourth going to an All India Gorkha League candidate (contesting as an independent).

Results

The Left Front emerged victorious, winning 238 out of 294 seats in the election. The combined Left Front vote was 11,869,003 votes (52.7% of the votes cast in the state).Election Commission of India.
STATISTICAL REPORT ON GENERAL ELECTION, 1982 TO THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF WEST BENGAL
' According to an unnamed Western diplomat, quoted in ''

India Today ''India Today'' is a weekly Indian English-language news magazine published by Living Media India Limited. It is the most widely circulated magazine in India, with a readership of close to 8 million. In 2014, ''India Today'' launched a new on ...

'' in regards to the polls, "Bengali democracy has come really close to the East European variant of the ' people's democracy' where nobody expects an upsetting victory or defeat".''India Today''.
West Bengal: Keeping to the Left
' Nevertheless, whilst the overall outcome was a landslide victory for the Left Front, the left also suffered a number of set-backs. Six incumbent Left Front ministers were defeated in their respective constituencies. The CPI(M) Information Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya lost the Cossipur seat to Congress(I) candidate Prafulla Kanti Ghosh by 728 votes. The CPI(M) Education Minister

Partha De Partha De (born 1940) is an Indian politician and a member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). He has served as the School Education Minister and Health Minister in the Government of West Bengal. Political career Partha De has represent ...

, noted for his policy of removing

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to t ...

from the primary school curriculum, lost the Bankura seat. The incumbent Food Minister, the Revolutionary Communist Party of India leader

Sudhindranath Kumar Sudhindranath Kumar (died 1984) was an Indian politician, belonging to the Revolutionary Communist Party of India. He served as general secretary of the party 1960–1984, represented Howrah Central constituency in the West Bengal Legislative ...

, lost his seat Howrah Central.''India Today''.
West Bengal: Seating scrap
' Finance Minister and CPI(M) heavy-weight

Ashok Mitra Ashok Mitra (10 April 1928 – 1 May 2018) was an Indian economist and Marxist politician. He was a chief economic adviser to the Government of India and later became finance minister of West Bengal and a member of the Rajya Sabha. Early life ...

lost the Rash Behari Avenue seat to Congress(I) candidate

Haimi Bose Toni Haimi is a Finnish people, Finnish guitarist originally from Hamina, Finland. As Toni Sailor he is the current guitarist of British electronica band Sohodolls, which he joined in 2004. All About Eve He is also famous for being the most re ...

. As Finance Minister Mitra had cracked down on the Sanchaita Savings Company, whose 'get-rich-quick' scheme had some 4,000 depositors in his constituency. In

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comm ...

Congress(I) managed to win 11 out of 22 seats.

Santosh Rana Santosh Rana (1942 – 29 June 2019) was an Indian politician. In the 1960s, he was a prominent figure in the armed struggle of the Naxalites led by Charu Majumdar. Rana received Ananda Puraskar for his book ''Rajnitir Ek Jibon'' in 2018. A ...

of the Provisional Central Committee, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) lost his Gopiballavpur seat to CPI(M). The ninth West Bengal Legislative Assembly was constituted on 24 May 1982.State Legislative Assembly West Bengal.
West Bengal Legislative Assembly Under the constitution of India
' CPI(M) leader Jyoti Basu remained as Chief Minister, being sworn in for a second term. Hasim Abdul Halim of CPI(M) became speaker of the Legislative Assembly, a post he would hold until 2011.''Ganashakti''.
Lal Salam Comrade Halim
''

References

{{West Bengal assembly elections State Assembly elections in West Bengal 1980s in West Bengal