Bengal bypolls: Left goes ahead on own, as Congress keeps waiting for cue from top

As per the announcement by Left Front chairman Biman Bose, the All India Forward Bloc (AIFB) will contest the Sitai seat, the RSP Madarihat, the CPI Medinipur, the CPI(ML)-Liberation Naihati and the CPI(M) Taldangra.

A source in the Left Front said that for the sixth constituency, Haroa, they were in talks with the Indian Secular Front (ISF).

Neither the Congress nor the Left has any MLA in the current West Bengal Assembly, while the ISF has a solitary legislator.

Of the six seats going to bypolls, the TMC won five in the 2021 Assembly elections, barring Madarihat. The BJP, which won Madarihat, was the runner-up in four others. In one seat, Haroa, the Rashtriya Secular Majlis Party (as the ISF was called then) was the runner-up.

Senior CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakraborty said that Congress president Shuvankar Sarkar had reached out to Bose only on Monday afternoon. “He wanted talks on Sitai and Madarihat seats. Biman Bose told him we were waiting for three days but the Congress did not respond, and now we have announced our candidate names. Now it is not possible to start talks on seat adjustment,” Chakraborty said, adding that it didn’t mean that the alliance with the Congress was off. “Just that this time, it did not work out.”

Sarkar also said that no larger conclusions should be drawn from the bypolls. Speaking to The Indian Express, he said: “My priority now is to strengthen the party. We had a very small stake in these bypolls.”

However, a senior party leader said the failure to tie up with the Left does not bode well for the Congress. Accusing the ruling Trinamool Congress and BJP of having “a hidden alliance”, the Congress leader said this made it imperative “to continue the alliance of the Congress and Left parties”.

A senior CPI(M) leader said that the Left was also keen to go it alone as it was confident of its chances in the bypolls after the long agitation by doctors of R G Kar Hospital. “We wanted to test our success electorally… And we are not against an alliance with the Congress but they should show some eagerness too. Secondly, a portion of our leaders and workers think that, if we fight alone, we will get much more votes than we got when we had an alliance with the Congress. That will also be checked out by this election.”

The CPI(M) leader added that the R G Kar agitation was also a rare case of the ultra-Left and other Left parties coming together successfully. “We don’t want to lose the tempo.”

While the TMC is set to make this a poll issue – saying it fits in with its claims that the doctors’ agitation was “instigated” – the Congress for now looks the most forlorn.

When it picked Shuvankar Sarkar as its new West Bengal chief, it was seen as a bid by the Congress to repair its ties with the TMC in the state. There had been no love lost between the TMC leadership and the previous Congress Bengal president, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who held the post first from 2014 to 2018, and then 2020 to now.

However, a senior Congress leader admitted that the expected improvement in ties with the TMC had not happened under Sarkar so far. “He has also been criticising the TMC government… Plus, he is not as active as Adhir Chowdhury was.”

The Congress and TMC last came together in the 2011 Assembly elections, when the TMC formed the government for the first time. However, within a year, the alliance had broken.

The Congress and Left, once sworn enemies, came together in the wake of the TMC’s success. They fought the 2016 Assembly elections together, with the Congress winning 44 seats and the Left 30, against the TMC’s 211 in the 294-member House. The BJP won three seats that year.

However, just a year later, the Congress-Left alliance broke.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress won two seats, the BJP won 18 and the TMC 22 of the total 42 seats in the state. The Left Front failed to open its account.

Then came the 2021 Assembly elections and the Left again tied up with the Congress, as well as the ISF. The alliance’s abysmal result, with only the newly floated ISF managing to win one seat, saw the TMC win 213 seats and the BJP 77.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, while the TMC was a part of the INDIA bloc at the Centre, including the Congress and Left, in West Bengal, it fought separately. The Congress won one seat, the Left failed to open its account while the TMC won 29 seats and the BJP 12.