Congress’s abysmal show in Bihar raises questions on seat-sharing pact for 2026 Bengal polls

Kolkata, Nov 15 (IANS) Objections within the CPI(M)-led Left Front in West Bengal, on Saturday, about continuing the seat-sharing arrangement with Congress for the next year’s state Assembly polls have started becoming stronger, following the disastrous results of the Mahagathbandhan (MGB), and more specially the Congress, in the recently concluded Bihar Assembly polls, the results of which were announced a day before.

“Till now, mainly the two allies of the Left Front, namely All India Forward Bloc and the Revolutionary Socialist Party, had been objecting to the continued seat-sharing arrangement with Congress for the 2026 West Bengal Assembly polls. But now, after the Bihar Assembly results, questions have also started surfacing from within CPI-M on the justification of continuing the seat-sharing arrangement with Congress in 2026,” a state CPI-M Central committee member requesting anonymity, said.

The section within the CPI-M, who are against the continuing seat-sharing agreement with Congress, has highlighted two points in favour of this argument.

First, this section within CPI-M feels that the tally of MGB in the recently concluded Bihar Assembly polls could have been a bit better, had Congress’s Central leadership not ‘arm-twisted’ in contesting from as many as 61 seats in the Bihar polls, and instead allowed other MGB allies with better prospects to contest from some of these seats.

Secondly, this section feels that CPI-M, being a regimented political force, might be able to mobilise its voters for Congress in case of a seat-sharing agreement; there is no guarantee that Congress leadership would be able to do the same in return.

“As it is, the seat-sharing arrangement between Congress for the 2026 West Bengal Assembly polls had been uncertain since the beginning, because of the absence of two architects of similar seat-sharing arrangements in the party, one being our former party General secretary, late Sitaram Yechury, and the other being the former State Congress President, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. Neither our present national leadership nor the current state Congress leadership seems to be keen to carry forward the seat-sharing arrangement in 2026,” the CPI-M Central committee member said.

The seat-sharing arrangement between the Left Front and Congress started in the 2016 West Bengal Assembly polls.

However, there was no such arrangement in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

However, the seat-sharing arrangement prevailed both in the 2021 West Bengal Assembly elections as well as in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

–IANS

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