the new Central Committee member during the congress. In February, Basu became involved in the 1954 teachers' agitation in West Bengal. The All Bengal Teachers Association (ABTA) had been called for implementing the recommendations of the Secondary Board for raising the allowances of secondary school teachers. The association was joined in by various labour unions and opposition parties in support of their demand. The government as a result decided to crack down on the leaders of the agitation but Basu escaped custody and took refuge in the West Bengal Legislature. The police force who were trying to arrest him through the Preventive Detention Act were reluctant to enter the assembly to arrest a legislator. In Basu's testimony, he states that it was easier for him support the agitation from inside the assembly by projecting the police action on the movement without getting arrested. During the presentation of the recommendation of the States Reorganisation Commission in 1956, a proposal for the merger of Bihar and West Bengal into a single state called Purva Pradesh was floated which was supported by the Indian National Congress. The Communist Party having maintained the stance of supporting linguistic reorganisation of states in India since 1920, was vehemently opposed to the proposal of the merger. The announcement of the proposal caused widespread protests in West Bengal led by students, workers and even peasantry, the Central Committee of the Communist Party held a meeting between 28 January to 4 February protesting the move. Basu and Yogendra Sharma, the secretaries of the state committees of the Communist Party in West Bengal and Bihar respectively issued a joint press statement calling the merger proposal to be "antidemocratic and reactionary". Basu is noted to have opposed the proposal from both within and outside the assembly, he presided over the mass meeting at Wellington Square in opposition to the proposal and severely criticised the governor's position in support of the proposal. According to his testimony, the proposal was akin to a conspiracy to annihilate the basic identity of Bengal. Basu presented the idea of the proposal as a poll issue for the by-elections of the year, supporting the candidacy of Mohit Mitra who the Central Committee's secretary for linguistic reorganisation and declared that the results should reflect the people's mandate. In the subsequent by-elections, Mohit Mitra won from the Calcutta North East constituency and Lal Behari Das won from the Khejuri