The Bangla Congress courted the Congress(R) for a seat-sharing alliance, but the Congress(R) rejected the offer.[5] For Congress(R) the Bangla Congress was considered too close to Congress(O).[5]
Violence
The electoral campaign was marred by violent incidents. The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) called for electoral boycott.[6][7] 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.[7] Across the state CPI(M) and CPI(ML) confronted each other; CPI(M) claimed that the CPI(ML) had killed some 200 of its cadres.[7]
Three candidates were killed during the electoral campaign; on February 17, 1971 Debdatta Mondal (Bangla Congress candidate in Ukhra) was killed, on February 20, 1971 the All India Forward Bloc leader and Shyampukur constituency candidate Hemanta Kumar Basu was killed in broad daylight and on March 5, 1971 Pijush Chandra Ghosh (Congress(O) candidate in Dum Dum) was killed.[8] 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.[8]
Result by constituency
No.
Constituency
Res.
United Left Front (Missing some independent candidates)
United Left Democratic Front (Missing some candidates, such as some of the PSP dissidents)
Congress (R)
Other (Listing the most-voted candidate outside the ULF/ULDF/Cong (R))
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.[10] Two ULDF affiliates, SSP and Gorkha League, joined the government.[10]
