The world’s longest serving elected communist government looks set to return to power again and complete 30 years in office next year.

The communist administration in Calcutta (Kolkata), the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, faces no real challenge in the state assembly elections which began in four of India’s 29 states and one of the six Union Territories yesterday.  Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal will all be electing new state governments and the Union Territory of Pondicherry a new local administration. The results won’t be known until mid-May because the elections are being staggered over several days and will continue till next month.

Only three of West Bengal’s 19 districts went to the polls yesterday but the result is already a foregone conclusion. The communists are heading for a landslide, reported the Rediffusion website and the Hindu newspaper. And that is the election that seems to be making the most headlines. The only Indian election news on the BBC News’ South Asia website at the moment is devoted to West Bengal and for a very good reason. “West Bengal is governed by the world’s longest-running elected Communist administration,” it said. The communists have won every election in West Bengal since 1977.

It is a remarkable record. It is true that the ruling political parties in the region where I now live have been in power even longer. Umno has been in power in Malaysia since 1957 and the People’s Action Party in Singapore since 1959. But they hold power at the national level. They run the country and can change the laws and electoral districts in their favour. The PAP government in predominantly Chinese Singapore introduced Group Representation Constituencies — multi-member wards — to represent the minorities — Malays, Indians, Eurasians — but the opposition says it makes it harder for them to find enough candidates to contest all the seats in parliament.

The communists in West Bengal have no such power. Election laws can be amended only by the federal parliament in New Delhi, which also has an independent Election Commission to oversee national and state elections. The communists and the Election Commission are frequently at loggerheads. Since the local administration, including the state police force, is controlled by the communist state government, the Election Commission has brought in federal police forces to guard election booths. There has been jiggery pokery in the past with the state police and local officials turning a blind eye to communist irregularities at the hustings. But such irregularities only increased the margin of communist victories. The majority voted for the communists anyway.

Exit polls this time point to the communists winning between 233 and 243 seats in the 294-seat state assembly, reported the Hindu newspaper.

What lies behind their amazing popularity? West Bengal fell behind several other states under communist rule, especially when Jyoti Basu was chief minister from 1977 to 2000. Age might have been one reason why he stepped down then — he will be celebrating his 92nd birthday on July 8 this year — but another reason could have been his growing unpopularity. Questions used to be asked about the remarkable rise of his son as an industrialist. But while industries moved out of West Bengal during Basu’s rule, the communists did good work in the villages, redistributing land, bringing power and electricity. And there was no communal violence. Hindus and Muslims lived peacefully together.

There was graft and corruption, as in every other state, and fighting between political parties.

But the communists somehow seemed cleaner than the other political parties. Voters remembered the violence and infighting when Congress — now in power in Delhi — last ruled the state in the 1970s. Some of the Congress leaders in the state were seen as corrupt and they fought among themselves, never posing a serious challenge to the communists. The Hindu nationalists who came to power in Delhi in 1998 and ruled the country till they lost the 2004 elections never made any headway in West Bengal.

The only threat to the communists came from a breakaway faction of the Congress which joined hands with the Hindu nationalists, but it was too militant and disorganised to be effective for very long. And now the communists are more popular than ever under the new chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya.

Bhattacharya, who succeeded Basu as his handpicked successor in 2000, is a clean, middle-class, culturally inclined Bengali gentleman whose only flaw is railing frequently against George W Bush and America. That’s natural perhaps for a leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). But he sounds awfully naive sometimes. However, he has been wooing investors and West Bengal is making progress again.

The three West Bengal districts which went to the polls yesterday are home to another group of communists, the more violent Maoists who believe in armed struggle and called a poll boycott this time as well. (Yes, India unlike China still has diehard followers of Chairman Mao.) But people want peace, not violence. And, despite the Maoists’ poll boycott call, 70 per cent voted.

Elections in West Bengal are being held over five days, on April 17, April 22, April 27, May 2 and May 8, and the votes will be counted on May 11.

In Calcutta the campaigning this time is more peaceful and low-key. I thought that unusual given the Bengalis’ love for culture, politics and any kind of excitement. But they don’t have a choice. The Election Commission has banned political graffiti, banners and posters. Soutik Biswas has a colourful feature on “Calcutta’s colourless campaign” on the BBC website. It is hurting the graffiti artists, but I am glad they cannot go about defacing the walls of people’s homes. Politicians, however, have found ways to get around the ban. A Muslim candidate has hired horses and decorated them with party banners to campaign in the suburbs!