Apart form the common minimum programme of the Front, the Communist Party in a separate manifesto said that the need was to establish a people’s government which strive to ensure :

- Freedom of the individual

- Minimum wages for all

- End of the food crisis

- Waiver of farmers' loans

- Low interest government loans and proper irrigation system

- End of the unemployment problem

- Decrease in the prices of essential commodities and end to corruption

- Widespread industrial sanctions

- End of the zamindari system without compensation for the landlords and free land to poor farmers and agriculturists

- Snapping of ties with the Commonwealth and seizure of British holdings and

- Setting up of business links with countries like the Soviet Union and China on the basis of equality.

The manifesto was published in the "Swadhinata" of December 8, 1951.

I had had to travel to almost all districts of West Bengal and address meetings of the Communist Party as well as the United Front. I had to go to states outside West Bengal too for the election campaign. On November 4, I addressed a one-lakh-strong meeting at Malabar. I was accompanied by the popular Communist leader of Malabar, A. K. Gopalan. This rally had kicked off the party's campaign. On November 24, I addressed a meeting of 15,000 people at Tamluk in Midnapur district. Kaka-babu and Biswanath Mukherjee also spoke at that rally. On December 7, I addressed a meeting of more that 15,000 people in Tripura.

I was asked by the party to contest the Baranagar Assembly seat in 24 Parganas district. Barangar was a new area for me; the party organization was weak and the residents of the area were traditional and conservative. However, during the election campaign, the local people came out spontaneously. There was small as well as big meetings and rallies; in all, the response was tremendous. The elections in Baranagar were held on January 18, 1952. I got 13,968 votes while Harendranath Chowdhury of the Congress got 8,539 votes. The RSP, KMPP, Socialist Party and two Independent candidates lost their deposists. Incidentally, Chowdhury was a member of Dr Roy's ministry.

Seven ministers of the Congress government were defeated. The former labour party leader who subsequently became a Congress minister, Niharendu Dutta Majumdar, was defeated by the Communist Party candidate Sudhir Chandra Bhandari at Maheshtala in 24 Paraganas district. At Bishnupur in the same district, minister Bimal Chandra Sinha lost to our candidate Prabhas Roy. Incidentally, Chowdhury who lost to me was also a minister. Our candidate Bankim Mukherjee won handsomely against labour minister Kalipada Mukherjee at Budge Budge by over 7,000 votes. The food minister, Prafulla Chandra Sen, lost by 21,000 votes to Independent candidate Radhakrishna Pal at Goghat in Hoogly district. Maharaja Uday Chand Mehtab, contesting ona Congress ticket, lost to our party’s Benoy Chowdhury at Bardhaman.

The Forward Bloc (Marxist) leader Satyapriya Banerjee was set up by the Front against the Congress candidate, Dr B. C. Roy, in Bowbazar. Dr Roy polled 14,910 votes while Satyapriya-babu got 9,799 votes; the margin thus was negligible. It should not be forgotten that the Congress used all its resources ranging from money and the administrative machinery to hooligans to ensure Dr Roy’s victory.

The Communist Party fought 71 seats in the first Assembly elections and won 28 of them. In the Lok Sabha, we got five out of nine seats. It was a very significant success considering the situation that was prevalent in those days. We emerged as the singlelargest opposition party in the Assembly.

The Congress government had taken it for granted that the Communist Party would be finished by the onslaught of terrorism and atrocities. That the people had not forsaken us despite some errors made by the party during 1948-50 was established in these elections.

Just after the elections, the Congress government sent back the political detenus _out on parole earlier _to jail again. However, after some time, the government was forced to release those held without trial in batches.

Sadhan Gupta was our party candidate from the Lok Sabha constituency of Calcutta (South-East). The others in the fray were Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee (Jan Sangh) and Mriganka Mohan Sur (Congress).The seat was won by the Jan Sangh. However, we set up Gupta again as our candidate in the byelection held in November 1953 after the death of Dr Mukherjee while the Congress fielded famous lawyer Dr Radhabinod Pal. In the straight contest, Gupta won with a huge margin and was elected to the Lok Sabha. We had six MPs in the first Lok Sabha from West Bengal _ Hiren Mukherjee, Tushar Chatterjee, Kamal Bose, Renu Chakraborty, Nikunja Chowdhury and Sadhan Gupta. We had also actively supported Dr Meghnath Saha and the RSP leader Tridib Chowdhury actively.

One incident requires mention; the election of our candidate Sudhir Bhandari from the Mahestala Assembly constituency by a few hundred votes was annulled. The byelection was held in 1953. The candidates were same but this time, Bhandari defeated Niharendu Dutta Majumdar by more than 10,000 votes.

It was after the first general elections that we got recognition as a national party and emerged as the singlelargest group in the Opposition. But no individual group in the Opposition got recognition as a party since none of them had a share of 10 per cent the total strength of the Lok Sabha.

A.K. Gopalan was unanimously chosen as the leader of Communist Parliamentary Party. Hiren Mukherjee and Renu Chakraborty became deputy leaders and Kamal Bose the chief whip. The Speaker recognized the Communist Party as the main Opposition group. Till his death in 1977, Gopalan remained the leader of the Communist group in the Lok Sabha.

We had won 28 seats in the West Bengal Assembly and two Independent candidates had won with our support. The Opposition strength, including the Forward Bloc, KMPP, Hindu Mahasabha, Jan Sangh and Independent members, was 76 seats while the Congress had 162 MLAs. We were the biggest party in the Opposition and naturally, expected to be recognized as a the main Opposition party.

The provincial committee discussed the post-poll scenario in 1952. We listed our main successes; some weakness were also evident. One major main weakness was that our influence had not spread as much as it should have had in the rural areas. We were successful in the city and its industrial belt. Some definite decisions were taken to overcome this weakness. A major stress was laid on involving more and more people in our movement and consolidate the electoral successes.

The significance and import of the success in the first general election cannot be minimised. We had to go through a continuous programme of struggle while the Congress spent huge amounts of money; the administrative machinery was used with impunity and there was massive rigging. Also, even though the High Court had ruled our party as lawful, in actuality, we had to fight for every inch; it was as if we were still a banned outfit. The elections again proved that despite the minor errors in the party line at times, the people had not left us. Political detenus were now being released and arrest warrants were withdrawn

The routine work of the party began iwith the leadership now out of jail.. The provincial committee as well as the secretariat started meeting regularly. The district committees also became active.

I was unanimously chosen as leader of the Legislative Party at a meeting of MLAs. This was done at the instance of the provincial committee. Monikuntala Sen was named the deputy leader while Biren Banerjee was made the chief whip.

A team was set up to help the party work in the Assembly as well as the Legislative Council. The effort was to improve the functioning and efficiency of the legislators. Comrades like Dinesh Roy actively participated in this work for a long time.

A new Congress ministry had been sworn in under the chief ministership of Dr B. C. Roy. The other ministers were Jadobendra Panja, Hemchandra Naskar, Ajoy Mukherjee, Shyama Prasad Barman, Khagendra Nath Dasgupta, Radhagobinda Roy, Renuka Roy, Prafulla Chandra Sen, Dr. R. Ahmed, Pannalal Basu, Satyendra Kumar Bose and Iswar Das Jalan. Prafulla Sen and Kalipada Mukherjee had lost in the 1952 Assembly elections, while Iswar Das Jalan was the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly since 1947. Fifteen ministers of state were also inducted.

We discussed the strategy to be taken in the Assembly within our party. It was decided that we would go all out against the Congress government and its anti-people policies and organize a mass movement. We also tried to reach agreements with other parties of the Opposition on various issues. This yielded results. We rallied the Opposition parties and fought together against the anti-people Bills and proposals of the Congress government.

Topmost on our agenda were the food crisis and the release of political detenus. The first session of the Assembly sat on June 18, 1952. The elections for the Speaker and Deputy Speaker were held the next day. While we knew clearly that the Opposition stood no chance, we decided to contest all the same. I proposed the name of veteran Forward Bloc Leader Jyotish Ghosh and was seconded by KMPP leader Charuchandra Bhandari. The Congress candidate was the MLA from Howrah, Saila Kumar Mukherjee, whose name was proposed by Dr. B. C. Roy and seconded by Purabi Mukherjee. Ghosh got 74 while Mukherjee polled 148 votes. Mukherjee was elected the Speaker. For the post of Deputy Speaker, the Opposition candidate was Natendranath Das. His name was proposed by me and supported by Bhandari. The Congress candidate was the former Deputy Speaker Ashutosh Mallick. His name was proposed by Pannalal Bose and supported by Hemchandra Naskar. The Opposition candidate got 74 while the Congress nominee received 144 votes. Mallick became the Deputy Speaker.

The full Budget session began on June 18. A vote-on-account Budget had been passed before the Assembly had adjourned on the eve of the general elections. The new Legislative Assembly was quite different in character and structure from the previous one. In the earlier Assembly, a chunk of the Congress members were big industrialists and zamindars, apart from the usual lawyers and doctors, which meant that the Congress was basically a party run by professionals and industrialists.

While most of them lost in the 1952 elections, those Congress candidates who had won from the villages were mainly big zamindars. Others like Bimal Sinha of Paikpara and the Maharaja of Burdwan lost but the Raja of Mahisadal, the Rani of Narajal and the Rani of Jalpaiguri _all royal personages _ won on Congress tickets. The zamindars in the Congress Legislative Party were extremely powerful though there were industrialists and businessmen too.

Those of us who were elected represented the peoples’ aspirations; all of us had spent years in jail either during the British Raj or after Independence during the Congress regime. Many of us spent a long time underground, working tirelessly for the people. Examples readily come to mind _ Ranen Sen, Manikuntala Sen, Biren Banerjee, Ambika Chakraborty, Narayan Roy, Bankim Mukherjee, to name only a few. Those of our comrades who were elected from the villages, had all participated in farmers’ struggles and movements and had faced torture and persecution during the British and Congress regimes.

The Forward Bloc was represented by Hementa Bose, Dr. Kanailal Bhattacharya Jyotishchandra Ghosh, Jyotish Jowardar and Amar Bose, among others. Charuchandra Bhaduri and Haripada Chatterjee were elected on KMPP tickets.

There was hardly any Opposition strength to write home about in the earlier Assembly. Ratanlal Brahman and I were the only two Communist Party members who represented the Opposition. However, after the 1952 elections, the new Opposition strength stood at 76; without the seven Jan Sangh and Hindu Mahasabha members, our total strength was an impressive 69.

The Communist Party had already emerged as the singlelargest Opposition party in the Assembly. I wrote a letter to the Speaker in my capacity as the Legislative Party leader demanding that the Communist Party be recognized as the Opposition and I be considered as the leader of the Opposition. I also sent a list of members of our party to the Speaker. Strangely, the Speaker seemed somewhat reticent about the matter and, finally on June 21, set up a panel of four members. But we went totally unrepresented; even a senior leader like Bankim Mukherjee was ignored.

After taking an inordinately long time, the Speaker gave an unprecedented ruling regarding recognition to the Opposition party. It is quite likely that he had entered into a tacit understanding with the chief minister. The Speaker said that the Communist Party could not be recognized as the Opposition. We were, however, being given the status of "main" Opposition party while I was designated as its leader.

I wrote a letter to the Speaker against the ruling. It was a fact that our block represented the only party in the Opposition ranks while the others were groups. Hence the status of ‘‘Main Opposition Party’’ was meaningless; we had to abide by the Speaker’s ruling anyway. There was one advantage though : as representatives of the main Opposition party we had the prerogative to initiate a debate. Also the very same party which the Congress government had only a few years back banned and deemed illegal had got an official recognition; this was a significant incident in the Communist movement.

My new status made my father somewhat happy; he was content that finally, his son had come up in life.

On June 21, I proposed an adjournment motion on the food crisis while Ganesh Ghosh raised another on the release of political detainus. But the Speaker rejected both. Almost all our members spoke during discussions in the first Budget Session.

But this is not to say that we only pilloried the government. There were some occasions in which consensual notices were sent to the Centre after being adopted in the Assembly.

During these times, there was a conscious effort to strengthen the mass organisations and the provincial committee. We moved around in the various districts extensively and attended many major as well as minor meetings. Before the party congress held at Madurai in 1953, the West Bengal Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of India discussed the draft political resolution and there were lengthy debates on the political and organisational reports. Resolutions were also adopted on the party’s ensuing programmes. A new provincial committee was elected, in which Saroj Mukherjee, Niranjan Sen, Pramode Dasgupta and Muzaffar Ahmed were included. I was unanimously chosen as the secretary.

The state secretariat meeting of the party was over by the first week of January 1954. The Madurai congress had elected 39 members to the new central committee. I was also part of it. Bhupesh Gupta and Ranen Sen were included and the new committee had representations from almost all states.

A nine-member Politburo was formed comprising Harkishen Singh Surjeet, Ajoy Ghosh, EMS Nampoodiripad, S.A. Dangey, P. Ramamurthy, P. Sundaraiyya, Ranen Sen, Z.A. Ahmed and C. Rajeswara Rao. While on paper, I headed the editorial board of "Swadhinata," it was Bhupesh Gupta who actually did the editor's work. After the elections, he took over as editor.