Desperate to regain lost ground in the wake of the Nandigram fiasco and widespread resistance by the rural population against the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee-government's industrialisation overdrive, the CPI-M is gearing up for launching its panchayat poll campaign with the goodies Mr Asim Dasgupta's Budget proposals have offered for the rural population. The CPI-M leadership is briefing its students, youth and peasants wing activists on the implications of the Budget proposals that seek to allot special funds for land reforms, stepping up agricultural output, free daily meal for over 400,000 rural poor who are incapacitated due to age and other infirmities to be engaged in any food-for-work schemes and the agricultural marketing corporation that will buy agricultural produce and market them through self-help groups. In fact, the state Budget proposals for the apparent benefit of the rural population have provided the CPI-M with something concrete to try to win over its rural supporters with. Till now it has been at the receiving end of a trenchant propaganda by the Trinamul Congress-led Opposition and some of the Left Front junior partners for the Nandigram mayhem, Singur small car controversy, Dinhata firing and ration shop scam involving a section of influential CPI-M activists. Even the minority population, which has, so long, been successfully cultivated with the CPI-M's anti-US and pro-Saddam posturing, became alienated as the policy of industrialisation through farm land acquisition posed a threat to the livelihood of this segment of the population in the villages. The involvement of five top Kolkata Police officials and the CPI-M leadership's role in browbeating Rizwanur Rehman created further mistrust among the minority population for the state government.