constituency, defeating their Congress counterparts by a margin of over 20,000 in both constituencies which caused the Chief Minister Bidhan Chandra Roy to scrap the merger proposal. Beginning of the food movements (1957–1962) In the West Bengal Legislative Assembly election of 1957, Basu was re-elected as the representative of the Baranagar constituency and the Communist Party returned as the second largest party with an increased representation. As a result, Basu formally became the Leader of Opposition in the assembly. This platform enabled the Communist Party under the leadership of Basu in West Bengal to exacerbate agitations against the prevalent food crisis in West Bengal by acting as the principal opposition on the floor of the assembly, increasing public awareness and providing a united front for agitators to rally around. Since the beginning of the British Raj, the region of Bengal had suffered from severe food shortages culminating into large-scale famines at times. Following independence of India, the Public Distribution System (PDS) was established and two land reforms were enacted in 1953 and 1955 in West Bengal. However, the implementation of these initiatives and reforms was rife with problems and the agricultural sector had remained in despondency while food shortages continued to afflict a largely impoverished population. The food crisis and general poverty had led to multiple outbursts of public agitations throughout the 1950s which peaked near the end of 1959. The leaders of the Communist Party adopted the twin strategy of organising anti-government mass movements by forming issue based committees to draw public support from beyond party lines and pressurise the government into providing relief measures while also badgering on about food scarcity on the floor of the legislative assembly to draw and retain public and media attention on the issue, Basu played a significant role in the latter with frequent moves for adjournment motions and participation in heated debates. By the end of 1958, the Communist Party initiated the formation of the Price Increase and Famine Resistance Committee (PIFRC) in collaboration with the other primarily leftist members of the opposition. Basu became one of the formative leaders of the committee. Food insecurity in West Bengal had reached a critical stage at the time and its persistence was largely blamed on the Food Ministry and the Indian National Congress wherein the Communist Party had continuously asserted that the Congress party had been reduced to the representative party of hoarders, landlords