1971 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election

Ahead of the 1971 election the map of party coalitions was redrawn. The United Front had split into two after the resignation of its Chief Minister. The United Left Front, also known as the Six-Party Coalition, was led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and included the Revolutionary Communist Party of India (Sudhindranath Kumar group), the Biplobi Bangla Congress, the Bolshevik Party of India (Nepal Bhattacharya group), the Workers Party of India and the Marxist Forward Bloc. The United Left Democratic Front, also known as the Eight-Party Coalition, was led by the Communist Party of India and included the All India Forward Bloc, the Socialist Unity Centre of India, the All India Gorkha League, the Bolshevik Party of India (Barada Mukutmoni group), the RCPI (Anadi Das group), the Samyukta Socialist Party and the Praja Socialist Party (Rebel). The ULDF failed to reach a seat-sharing agreement with the Bangla Congress, but managed to agree to some seat-sharings with the Congress(R). For Congress(R) the Bangla Congress was considered too close to Congress(O). ==Violence==

The electoral campaign was marred by violent incidents. The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) called for electoral boycott. The CPI(M) on the other hand saw the CPI(ML) as a pawn of Congress(R) to sabotage its chances of winning power in the state. Elections were countermanded in these three constituencies, but in Shyampukur no election was held as Ajit Kumar Biswas (the candidate nominated by the Forward Bloc in lieu of Hemanta Kumar Basu) was killed as well. == Results ==

Results by constituency == Government formation ==

Following the election, the Congress(R), the Bangla Congress and the ULDF came to an agreement (albeit without the approval of SUCI), that Congress(R) and Bangla Congress would form a government and ULDF would support it from outside. Two ULDF affiliates, SSP and Gorkha League, joined the government. ==References==