16 SOCIAL SCIEN11ST Janata (in other places) candidates. This again became a major issue of debate among the Naxalitcs. Several groups—the UCCRT (ML), the COC(ML), and the Unity Committee (ML)—opposed it on the ground that it would create ideological confusion and parliamentary illusions which the Naxalites had fought so consistently over the past ten years.89 Even Jayasree Rana, the wife of the successful candidate from Gopiballavpore, Santosh Rana, and a leading figure in the civil liberties campaign in West Bengal, refused tfi support her husband, and formed a new party, CPI(ML) (Bolshevik) to register this point publicly.<0 On the other hand, the CPI(ML) took the view that the election campaign helped the party to put across its message to the people without fear, to reorganise itself at the grass root level, and to strengthen its link with the masses. After the elections, in a document issued in December 1977, the party said: "The decision of the CC to participate in the elections has been proved to be correct by the election results/541 The hostility towards participation in the elections declined as the June election approached. While some of the groups maintained even up to the time of the election that the Naxalites themselves should not participate in it, there was hardly any campaign for boycotting the election this time. Some of the leading Naxalites — including Kanu Sanyal, Jangal Santal, Ashim Chattcrjee, and Souren Bose — issued a statement from prison saying that the slogan of^boycotting election5 would have amounted to 'strengthening the hands of autocracy'at the time of the March election,41 and asked the people in West Bengal to support the CPI(M)"led united front candidates in the June election. The Unity Committee (ML) was split on this issue.48 Relations with the Janata Party Finally, the attitude to adopt towards the Janata party continued to be a major area of difference in this period also. As we have already noted, the GPI (ML) led by Singh was the first among the left groups and parties in India to give ^unconditional9 support to the JP-led Bihar movement in 1974-75, and that it supported the Janata party during the March 1977 election campaign. This was consistent with the position of the party that ^fascism9 was the main enemy of, the time, and a very broad based united front was essential to combat it. To the extent that the Janata party emerged as the main challenge to the Indira government, the CPI (ML) 's decision to support it followed from this general political line. After the formation of the Janata government, the CPI (ML) gave them ^critical support5. All these were seen by the critics of Singh in the movement as acts of surrender to a bourgeois-landlord party., which was as much a class enemy of the people of India as the Indira Congress. Singles close association with the pro-kulak Home Minister of India, Charan Singb,