Why Congress, Left are in Catch-22 over joining hands for Bengal elections

The rows over the Election Commission (EC)’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and the recent Enforcement Directorate (ED)’s raids on the I-PAC premises, the election management firm working for the TMC, in Bengal again signalled that the face-off marked by a shrill and acerbic exchange is mainly between Mamata Banerjee and the BJP.

Sources in the Congress as well as the Left told The Indian Express that both parties, which are also key constituents of the Opposition INDIA bloc, have not held any consultations on an electoral pact for the Bengal elections so far. In contrast, they had announced their decision to go together in the 2021 elections as early as December 2020. But their Sanjukta Morcha experiment then turned out to be a disaster with the alliance winning just one seat – with both the Congress and the Left failing to open their accounts, and the lone Bhangar seat won by their junior ally Indian Secular Front, which had then just made its debut. For the first time since Independence, the Left drew a blank in the state.

CPI(M) sources said the party’s highest decision-making body, Central Committee, during its three-day meeting starting Friday in Thiruvananthapuram, is going to discuss its electoral tactics and strategies for different states heading for polls in the next few months.

The Congress’s Bengal unit appears to be divided on the question of alliance. Sources said state Congress president Subhankar Sarkar is in favour of the party going solo.

Those close to Sarkar argue that the party has not been able to revive itself in the state because of dependence on alliances for ore than two decades. “In the last two decades, the Congress’s flag or symbol were not seen in two-thirds of Bengal’s constituencies. How can we expect the party to grow in such a situation? It is time for the Congress to take a hard look and make a decision, even if difficult, to go alone in view of its long-term interest,” a senior state party leader said.

The Congress had last contested over 100 seats in Bengal way back in the 2006 Assembly elections. In 1996, when it was the principal Opposition, the party fielded candidates in 288 of the state’s 294 constituencies and won 82 seats with a vote share of 39.48%. In 2001, it aligned with the TMC and contested in just 60 seats, winning 26.

In 2006, the Congress’s bid for a pact with the TMC could not materialise as Mamata refused to accept the party’s precondition that her party should part ways with the BJP. The Congress was then forced to contest alone in 262 seats and won just 21. The party joined hands with the TMC again in 2011, when the alliance managed to oust the Left from power after its 34-year reign. The grand old party had then contested 66 seats and won 42 with a vote share of 9%.

In 2016 and 2021, the Congress contested 92 seats in alliance with the Left. While the party managed to get 44 seats with a vote share of 12.25% in 2016, it got zero seats in 2021 with its vote share plunging to 3%. The Congress leaders who are against a tie-up with the Left argue that the party’s symbol and flag should be taken to every constituency if it is serious about rebuilding itself in the state.

The Left is also cagey over the alliance issue as it sees the Congress as a “baggage”. “In 2016, the CPI(M) had a vote share close to 20%. The BJP had just about 10% votes. In 2021, the BJP’s vote share touched almost 39% and our votes dipped to 4.71%. The Congress’s vote share, too, went down from 12.25% to 3%. The TMC’s vote share rose from 44% to 48%. So it is our votes which primarily went to the BJP, which was perhaps because of our alliance with the Congress,” a Left leader said.

And then there is a Kerala angle, where the Congress and the CPI(M) have all along been arch rivals. A Left-Congress alliance in Bengal will give the BJP talking points in poll-bound Kerala. Unlike 2021, the BJP has emerged as a player in the Kerala elections this time, especially after its better than expected performance in the recent local body elections. “The Congress and the Left will hold hands in Bengal and fight each other in Kerala. It will be ‘dosti’ in Bengal and ‘kushti’ in Kerala. People will be watching all this,” a BJP leader said.

However, a section of Congress leaders believe that the party has little option but to tie up with the Left in Bengal to be seen as a contender in the otherwise two-cornered fight. Interestingly, even those Congress leaders who are not in favour of an alliance with the Left and want the party to go alone know that the final call will be taken by the All India Congress Committee (AICC) leadership, which may well advocate for an alignment with the Left.