After having worked out an electoral alliance with Congress since 2016 Assembly polls, the CPI(M) wants the other political outfit to make the first overtures for a poll pact in 2025 Assembly elections. It needs to be stated that the state Congress leadership is awaiting the nod of its national counterpart to hitch it’s wagons with the CPI(M).
The 2016 poll alliance worked wonders for both the outfits. The Congress with organisational support from CPI(M) and other Left Front partners emerged as principal Opposition party.
Setting it’s ego aside, the CPI(M) worked in tandem with Congress in the state Assembly. Numerical superiority of Trinamool Congress notwithstanding, the Congress -Left combine often caught the.Treasury bench members on the wrong foot.
But relations soured post 2021 Assembly elections when both the parties failed to secure a single constituency. The BJP emerged as the main Opposition party.
Things went further downhill in 2024 by elections in which Congress declared nominees in six constituencies going for the by-polls. It came a day after the Left Front did the same.
CPI(M) central committee member, Sujan Chakraborty said that the Congress had shown no interest in the alliance. He had pointed out that the party leadership had learnt from media that Congress was contesting in all the six seats.
Reading between the lines, political observers pointed out that the state Congress leadership had bowed before AICC’s wished. Given its worst ever performance in West Bengal in 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the state leadership was left with little option.
Against this backdrop, the AICC felt that it was a better political option cosying up to Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress. It lent the newly formed anti-BJP coalition INDIA bloc a better traction at. the national level.
In so many words, the state Congress leadership had little nay nothing to place before emphatically underscoring an alliance with the Left. though There was no electoral.benefits to showcase though both the alliance partners had mutual respect between them.
The bitter memories of the poll understanding with TMC in the crucial 2011 Assembly polls were yet to fade. The Trinamool and Congress combine ended the 34 yearlong CPI(M)-led Left Front regime and formed a government which the Congress left soon after.
But the 2016 alliance cobbled between two traditional political rivals held good for the next five years. The Congress is painfully aware that it will be in for another round of political humiliation playing second fiddle to TMC once an alliance is inked for 2026:elections.
But from the AICC’s viewpoint an alliance in the coming state level election will ease intra-party elections in the coming Lok Sabha polls. And it is of greater priority to the Grand Old Party seeking to retrieve it’s past glory.
The CPI(M) leadership has reasons of its own to seek the first overtures of a poll alliance being made from Congress. It does not want to lose face after its unenviable experience in last year’s bypolls.
The CPI(M) leadership cites a precedent. It did not field a candidate in the Kaligunj bypoll this year after being requested by its Congress counterpart.
One would not be wide off the mark to say that the CPI(M)’s decision is tactical as it is in keeping with the resolution of its 24th Party Congress held last April at Madurai. The party leadership decided to be giving greater stress to independent political lined in the days to come .
Electoral understanding is hardly the top priority in this game plan. Hence the decision to await an overture from Congress.
The Congress and the Left had no poll understanding in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. As things stand now, a poll alliance for 2026 between theTrinamool and Congress is on the cards given the proximity of the two outfits in national level politics.
But there still exists a string demand for alliance at the grassroot level activists of both Left and Congress. Former state Congress chief, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is one of the votaries for it.
It was Chowdhury who was one of the principal proponents of the 2016 poll pact. There is a considerable section within the state CPI(M) seeking another understanding to return to political relevance in electoral politics.
But adhering to the party line, it is loath to make the first move. It is unlikely for the Congress to initiate the dialogue in the backdrop of the existing situation in national politics when the Congress and Trinamool have joined shoulders opposing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in the voters list.
