Kolkata, June 4 (IANS) It is for the Congress to decide whether they would like to continue with their electoral seat-sharing arrangement with the CPI-M-led Left Front in West Bengal for the crucial Assembly elections scheduled next year, CPI-M state Secretary and party Politburo member Md Salim said on Wednesday.
Salim’s observation came in the wake of media queries on whether the continuance of the electoral alliance between Congress and Left Front was possible amid the former’s top leadership developing a soft corner for the state’s ruling Trinamool Congress, especially Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
“The Congress sought our support for their candidate for the forthcoming bypoll for Kaliganj Assembly constituency scheduled this month. We decided to back their candidate and refrained from fielding our candidate. They said that they wanted to continue their understanding with us that was reached for the 2021 assembly election and 2024 Lok Sabha polls in the 2025 bypoll. Now, they will have to decide what they want to do in 2026. We cannot take decisions on the Congress’s behalf,” Salim told media persons here.
The electoral understanding between Congress and the Left Front started in the 2016 West Bengal assembly election. However, in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, there was no seat-sharing arrangement between the two parties.
However, the arrangement again fructified for the 2021 Assembly elections and continued in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Now the question is whether the same understanding between the Congress and the Left Front would continue in the 2026 polls, considering the changed situations both in the Congress and the CPI-M.
On one hand, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, known for his diehard anti-Trinamool Congress stand, has been replaced as the Congress state chief by Suvankar Sarkar, perceived to be softer as regards relations with the ruling party.
Secondly, in the draft political resolution of the CPI-M’s 24th Party Congress that concluded at Madurai in April this year, the party’s central leadership focused more on independent political lines in the coming days rather than on electoral understandings.
“The party should pay more attention to the independent political campaign and mass mobilisation around the political platform of the party. There should be no blurring of our independent identity or diminishing of our independent activities in the name of electoral understanding or alliances,” the excerpts of the draft political resolution had read.
–IANS
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