The Bengal Congress is moving towards falling in line with the high command’s directive and hold hands with the Trinamul Congress in Bengal and dump its first preference, the Left.
“The AICC believes even winning one additional seat (in Bengal) will be a gain and the chances of that happening are brighter with the Trinamul,” said a state Congress functionary. “Though we do not agree with it, there is little we can do. We are also waiting to hear the final word.”
The Congress is now believed to have scaled down its demands to five seats in Bengal, including the two seats which it had won in 2019, Berhampore and Maldah South. The Trinamul is likely to offer Darjeeling and one more seat,taking the tally to four. The Congress, on the other hand, is insisting on Raigunj and Purulia.
Trinamul chief Mamata Banerjee had claimed in public that the Congress had demanded 12-14 seats, while she could only offer them two. She has also made it clear that Trinamul would go it alone in Bengal and also field two candidates in Assam.
In public neither state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury nor any of the Delhi leaders had specified the number of seats they were keen to contest in Bengal. The only condition was that the party wanted seats in south Bengal too.
The animosity between Chowdhury and the Bengal chief minister is well known. In the months ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, Chowdhury has often said that he would prefer to contest as an Independent and lose than hold hands with the Trinamul.
The confusion within the Congress rank and file is evident as AICC leaders like Jairam Ramesh have always held the party was still in talks with the Trinamul, while Bengal leaders remained critical of the Mamata Banerjee government, especially on the Sandeshkhali issue.
In the three public meetings that Narendra Modi has addressed in Bengal, he has attacked the INDI-Alliance, with the focus on Trinamul and its alleged corruption.
“AICC leaders fail to understand that we will have to shoulder the burden of the Trinamul’s excesses. They may have a poll machinery but there are other factors too. How can we forget how they have poached our MLAs, councillors and panchayat members since coming to power in 2011 and the charges of corruption against them?” asked a Bengal Congress leader.
Even the CPM is now convinced that waiting for the Congress in Bengal is futile.
A CPM rally in Murshidabad on Thursday. Video grab from Facebook.
“We wanted to forge unity to avoid fragmentation of votes,” said a CPM leader. “We have a contingency plan ready and are engaged in stitching people’s unity.”
The CPM is likely to field a prominent face from the minority community from the Murshidabad seat, which it had won in 2014. In 2019, the party, contesting on its own, did not win any seat. In the two seats of Berhampore and Maldah South, the Left did not field any candidate, leaving the two to the Congress.
CPM leaders, including state secretary Mohammad Salim and youth leader Minakshi Mukherjee, were in Murshidabad on Thursday. Salim led a rally in Hariharpara and Domkals, both segments in the Murshidabad Lok Sabha constituency, while Minakshi held a closed-door meeting with the party’s youth wing.
Between 2014 and now, in Chowdhury’s home turf Murshidabad, like elsewhere in the state, the Congress strength has steadily declined with its leaders like Apurba Sarkar, Abu Taher Khan, Shaoni Singha Roy, Rabiul Alam Chowdhury, Narugopal Mukherjee and others moving to the Trinamul.
The last to defect to the Trinamul was Bayron Biswas in 2023. He had won the Sagardighi bypoll on a Congress ticket supported by the Left, and polled 47.35 per cent of the votes.
Many from the Congress who moved to the Trinamul in the last ten years were unhappy with the leadership of Chowdhury and alleged interference from those close to him in their constituencies.
When asked whether they would campaign and ensure a sixth straight term for Chowdhury from Berhampore, a Trinamul MLA (who was with the Congress earlier) said: “Let the alliance happen first.”
