Hopes of the CPM-Congress combine for an electoral revival were dashed once again in Bengal in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

To make things worse, the combine’s top two leaders — Md Salim and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury — tasted defeat in Murshidabad and Baharampur Lok Sabha seats, respectively.

While the Left failed to open its Lok Sabha account in Bengal for the second successive time after 2019, the Congress lost the Baharampur seat to the Trinamool Congress but managed to hold on to the Malda South seat.

On Tuesday, as results began to pour in and it became evident that the Left-Congress combine had failed to perform according to their expectations, not many were found at the state headquarters of the two parties.

“Biman (Bose)-da is yet to come down while most leaders are busy with the counting process. They will come later in the day,” said a party worker at the Alimuddin Street headquarters of the CPM.

“The decline in vote percentage continued to hurt both sides and this time it had much to do with the green wave of Trinamool than the saffron surge in 2019,” said Congress leader Asit Mitra, who was sitting with a couple of people at the ground floor garage space at the party’s state headquarters Vidhan Bhawan.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Left Front’s voting percentage was 7.5, while
that of the Congress was 5.7. The CPM alone had bagged 6.3 per cent votes. Five years later, vote shares of the Left and the Congress dropped further. According to the Election Commission data, the vote share of the Left is slightly over 6 per cent, the CPM 5.6 per cent and the Congress is 4.76 per cent.

The Congress lost the prestigious Baharampur seat where former India cricketer Yusuf Pathan defeated five-time MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.

Asked what led to a poor show by the Congress and the Left in this election, Congress leader Abdus Sattar said: “We lost to five Ms — Mamata, mahila (women), minority, machinery and money — of the Trinamool.”

With an eye on 2026 Assembly polls, Sattar said the Left-Congress relationship in Bengal should go beyond mere seat-sharing.

Responding to a query, senior CPM leader Samik Lahiri admitted that while schemes like Lakshmir Bhandar played a major role in the TMC’s victory, there was more to it. “It’s not just Lakshmir Bhandar, the TMC has benefitted from the anti-Narendra Modi wave this time,” he added.

A member of the CPM state committee said: “We should not get disheartened, instead start preparing for the 2026 Assembly polls. Revival takes time and doesn’t happen overnight.”