By IANS
Kolkata : Communist patriarch Jyoti Basu Friday said the ruling Left Front in West Bengal will win the July 22 election to Haldia municipality in East Midnapore despite its debacle in the Panskura civic poll in the same district following the Nandigram wave favouring the opposition.
"We will win. Though last time we won all the seats, this time I am not sure if we would win all but we will win the municipality," Basu told reporters after a meeting of the state Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) secretariat.
Elections in Haldia, the port town and growing industrial hub in West Bengal located about 125 km from Kolkata, will be a harbinger of people's mood following the land acquisition controversy that rocked the state and put the communists on the defensive.
Haldia has also been chosen as an alternative destination for a chemical hub project that was planned in Nandigram. Trinamool Congres chief Mamata Banerjee, however, said she would not allow the hub even in Haldia.
The communists had swept the last polls by winning all 25 wards.
The Trinamool Congress and the Congress have formed an alliance to contest the Haldia civic polls.