While the fair ground is teeming with flags of all hues and colours, the pre-dominance of red and saffron is surely causing a flutter.

Though the ruling Marxist party is avowedly atheist, it has not stopped it from setting up stalls to sell party literature using the Mela platform.

The CPM earns a handsome amount from the construction labourers who come to the Mela seeking employment by enrolling them as members of the CITU.

Every year during the Mela, Marxists set up stalls for selling books and the stall owners collect Rs 12 as membership fee from the construction workers to get them authorized under CITU by assuring them that the party would take care of their needs during the religious fair.

According to a CITU member, the party has already enlisted around 1,800 such labourers this year and earned Rs 21,600. Last year, the

stall owners earned around Rs 27,000 by enrolling 2,300 construction workers.

“We have nothing to do with the religious festival. We are here because we treat it as a fair ground where not only Hindus but all other religious and non-religious communities come. We come here for utilising the huge gathering for promoting our ideology by selling books on Communism,” said Achintya Mondal, the general secretary of CITU-backed West Bengal Nirmankarmi Union.

“We also collect the membership fee from construction workers. Last year, we had enrolled around 2,200 of them into the party. This year, however, there is a sharp fall in the figure. Since our party has lost the Panchayet polls, we have lost around 400 of our members,” he added.