“We have to rally the people behind us. It is a reality that the CPM has been isolated from the masses. If we do not accept the reality, why will people follow us?” said Hafiz Alam Sairani, senior state secretariat member of the party.

A report that the North 24-Parganas Forward Bloc committee recently sent to the party brass in Kolkata is even more scathing. “The Left Front government is suffering from gangrene. For this, the CPM is responsible,” it says.

Forward Bloc sources said at the local level, there is a perception that the arrogance and misuse of power led to the defeat of the Left Front candidates in the rural polls. “The wave against the CPM still continues. We have to survive on our own,” said the Bloc leader.

Party general secretary Ashok Ghosh said: “It is true our grass-roots workers are blaming the CPM since we have to tell the people about real cause of our losses,” said Ghosh.

Party sources said reports coming in from their district committees are categorical in blaming the land acquisition policy for the Left’s rout in successive polls.

“The big brotherly attitude of local CPM leaders turned the voters hostile against the government and the Left Front,” sources said, quoting one of the district committee reports.