The future of the eight-year on-again, off-again partnership between Muzaffar Ahmad Bhavan and Bidhan Bhavan seems uncertain at the moment, with the Left and the Congress announcing candidates separately for the November 13 Assembly bypolls.

But insiders in the Congress and the CPM urged against the precarious intra-INDIA, anti-Mamata Banerjee experiment being written off just yet.

“The parleys began too late, with mixed signals from both ends. The CPM, under pressure from allies (such as the Forward Bloc and the ISF), went ahead and released its list on Monday. That happened despite an eleventh-hour message from the Pradesh Congress Committee,” said a Congress insider, referring to a last-minute message from state unit chief Subhankar Sarkar to Left Front chairman Biman Bose.

The Left Front allotted Sitai to Bloc, Madarihat to RSP, Medinipur to CPI and Naihati to the CPIML-Liberation, and Taldangra to the CPM. It left Haroa vacant for the ISF.

The Congress would have liked Sitai — which was the only one out of these six it had contested from three years ago — and another seat.

“On Tuesday, Venu urged Dada to speak directly to Bimanda, to see if anything could be done. Dada — who was not part of this at all — said such things should be left to the state unit, but Venu insisted,” he said. The “Dada” referred to was the recently-replaced state Congress chief (still a CWC member) Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, while “Venu” meant AICC general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal.

The Congress finds itself in a spot of bother as in the INDIA bloc, the party is bedfellows with both Mamata Banerjee and the CPM, while in the state, it has been at daggers drawn with her.

“Dada and Bimanda spoke at length over the phone. They have a great rapport. Bimanda said this time, it’s too late. But their doors remain ajar for the future,” said the Congress insider. “So, it would be immature to start writing the Congress-Left Bengal alliance’s death certificate… although Manoniya (Mamata) would love nothing more,” he added.

The Congress released its list of six candidates on Wednesday night.

Since the replacement last month of Chowdhury, who is known to be anti-Mamata, as state unit chief of the Congress, by the perceived “moderate” Sarkar, speculation was rife on the Grand Old Party’s change of heart towards rubbing the Trinamool Congress the wrong way in the Bengal arena.

“But, at least till now, they (Sarkar and Chowdhury) remain on the same page concerning the Left and our need for equidistance from Mamata and the BJP,” said a state Congress functionary.

Chowdhury’s unflinching anti-Mamata stance and his proximity with the CPM did not help the party electorally in recent years. The Congress and the Left together won none in the 294-seat Assembly three years ago. This year, the Congress won just one – Malda Dakshin – and the Left none of the 42 Lok Sabha seats. Even Chowdhury, who won five consecutive general elections from Baharampur since 1999, lost to Trinamool’s greenhorn, retired cricketer Yusuf Pathan this time.

The Congress’s chief spokesperson for Bengal, Soumya Aich Roy, said this time it was mainly a problem of communication and its timing that got in the way of seat-sharing, and that wouldn't be the case in the future.

“We have not shifted from our equidistance (from Mamata and the BJP in Bengal), and the 2026 Assembly elections would be fought accordingly, in the partnership we remain committed to,” he said.

A CPM state committee member said: “Please don’t be too quick to judge, certainly not on the basis of what did or did not happen ahead of this set of by-polls.”