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That the Congress-Left coalition may not fructify before the November 13 bypolls in six assembly seats of West Bengal became clear late on Tuesday night when the All India Congress Commitee (AICC) announced its candidates for all six seats, a day after the CPI(M) and other partners in the Left Front did the same.
CPI(M) Central Committee member Sujan Chakraborty told HT that the Congress did not express any interest in forming an alliance for the bypolls.
“The Congress did not approach us all these days to discuss seat sharing. We saw in media reports that they had decided to contest in all six. They finalised their candidates and sent the list to Delhi. Naturally, we had to do the same,” Chakraborty said.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC) was the first to announce its candidates, followed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on October 19. The Election Commission of India announced the bypolls on October 15.
“The state Congress leadership contacted us on Monday afternoon. By then we had already finalised our candidates. So, we informed the Congress and released our list on Monday evening,” Chakraborty added.
West Bengal Congress spokesperson Soumya Aich Roy, however, did not take sides.
“Unlike Chakraborty, we are neither blaming ourselves nor the Left. Our former state president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury did talk to Left Front chairman Biman Bose. But being a national party, we cannot take a final call at the state level. We sent a list of candidates to the AICC and waited for its decision,” Aich Roy said.
The INDIA coalition against the BJP did not fare well in the recent Lok Sabha elections in West Bengal. The TMC walked out of it citing Chowdhury’s repeated criticism of chief minister Mamata Banerjee. Although the Congress and CPI(M) continued their alliance, the latter’s partners — the Communist Party of India (CPI), All India Forward Bloc (AIFB) and Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) — expressed dissent after being told not to contest more than two seats each.
Chowdhury, who lost from his home seat of Berhampore Lok Sabha constituency earlier this year, was recently replaced by Subhankar Sarkar as the state Congress president.
“Nobody should assume that there will be no alliance with the Left in the crucial 2026 assembly polls. The CPI(M) and Congress are integral parts of the INDIA coalition. Our national president Mallikarjun Kharge reiterated this in his recent statements,” Aich Roy said.
“We urge people to bear in mind that the TMC and the BJP are adversaries of both Left and Congress in Bengal. We don’t want division in opposition votes to help our rivals. We expect voters to be judicious,” he added.
Neither Congress nor the Left have any legislator in the 294-member Bengal legislative assembly for the first time since Independence. The BJP won 75 seats in 2019 and the TMC bagged 215.
The six seats – Sitai (SC), Madarihat (ST), Naihati, Haroa, Midnapore and Taldangra – are going to polls because the incumbent MLAs were elected to Lok Sabha this year. All parties have fielded local candidates for the bypolls.
Five of these seats were won by TMC in 2021 while Madarihat was bagged by BJP.
In north Bengal, the TMC’s Sitai MLA Jagadish Chandra Basunia became the MP from Cooch Behar defeating the then Union minister of state for home affairs Nisith Pramanik while BJP’s Madarihat MLA Manoj Tigga retained the Alipurduar Lok Sabha seat that the BJP won in 2019.
In south Bengal, minister Partha Bhowmick, the MLA from Naihati, won the Barrackpore Lok Sabha election defeating the BJP’s sitting MP Arjun Singh.
TMC MLA from Midnapore, June Malia, won the Midnapore Lok Sabha seat defeating the BJP’s Agnimitra Paul who was a sitting MLA from West Burdwan district.
In Haroa, TMC MLA Sk Haji Nurul Islam was elected to the Basirhat Lok Sabha seat.
At Taldangra in Bankura district, the local TMC MLA Arup Chakraborty defeated the then Union minister of state Subhas Sarkar at the Bankura Lok Sabha seat.