Today in Politics: INDIA alliance’s Bengal predicament, and will it finally appoint a convener?

A TMC leader told Manoj CG that the party was informed about the meeting at really short notice on Friday and that the Congress did not disclose the agenda of the meeting. But, according to some in the alliance, the appointment of a convener may be among the “other important matters” discussed at the meeting. It has been apparent for some time now that the Janata Dal (United) wants its chief and Bihar CM Nitish Kumar to be appointed convener. As Manoj writes, the Congress is “agreeable to Kumar being appointed the convener if there is a consensus in the bloc”.

This is the second time in as many days this week that the TMC has refused to engage with the Congress. On Thursday, the party said it would not meet the Congress’s national alliance committee to work out the seat agreement in West Bengal. The party is ready to offer two, and a maximum of three, constituencies to the Congress, an offer not acceptable to the state unit of the party.

But this is not an unforeseen situation. Both parties knew they would have to ultimately cross the bridge and now that the moment of truth is here they are finding out how tough it actually is. Back in August, asked at an Idea Exchange interaction in the office of The Indian Express about a “real challenge from West Bengal to the (INDIA) alliance”, state Congress president and the party’s Lok Sabha leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said, “You are right. It is a very difficult kettle of fish. I must appreciate it. But the issue is that necessity knows no bounds. During World War II, capitalist America, communist Russia and imperialist Britain were cobbled together to fight the fascist regime. It was not by choice but by necessity, which is said to be the mother of all inventions. You can also say that INDIA, in a new incarnation, is also an invention.”

The necessity that Chowdhury spoke of — stopping the BJP’s electoral juggernaut — is very much still there but the reality of the dynamics on the ground is something that the parties are having to navigate right now. For the Congress, and for that matter even the Left, reaching any agreement on the TMC’s terms will signal that it is willing to stand by in the state in the interest of the national alliance and let the Mamata Banerjee-led party fight it out. That could potentially mark a state of no return for these parties in Bengal and that explains their reluctance.

For the TMC, it is a matter of cold, hard math. As a senior leader of the party told Manoj, “The Congress got over 30% votes in only two of the 42 seats in Bengal (in 2019). How can they claim more seats?” And that goes for the Left too, which has zero Assembly constituencies or Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal at present.

This is the INDIA alliance’s Bengal puzzle, something it has to figure out at the earliest because the BJP is said to be looking to hit the top gear as far as poll preparation is concerned after the inauguration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya on January 22.