Kolkata: Even before the much-touted 'Mahagatbandhan' could take shape ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in the country, cracks came out in the open in the 'grand alliance' with the Congress declaring in West Bengal that it will face the polls alone rather than bowing to the adamant attitude of the Left Front.
Reason for the Congress' latest U-turn is allegedly due to the CPM-led Left Front's dictatorial way of distributing seats to the allies.
The Congress will take a final call on the matter after a meeting of its election committee to be held late on Wednesday, state Congress leaders said.
According to party sources, the Congress has already sought bio-data of prospective candidates for all the 42 Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal.
“We are now preparing to contest the Lok Sabha polls alone in the state. The CPM and Left Front seem to be adamant on some of the seats. The talks don't appear to be moving forward. So it's better to contest alone,” a senior state Congress leader privy to the developments said on Tuesday.
The development comes a day after the CPM managed to bring along two of its allies the RSP and the CPI on board on making an alliance with the Congress in the state.
The leaders of both the parties claimed that the CPM’s decision to enter into a seat-sharing arrangement with the Congress in West Bengal in the 2016 Assembly elections was ‘detrimental’ to the ‘electoral interests’ of the Left Front.
However, another Left Front constituent Forward Bloc is not ready to toe the line, as the party is keen on contesting Purulia, Coochbehar and Barasat Lok Sabha seats in which the Congress also wants to field its candidates.
“I really cannot understand why the CPM thinks that it will be able to counter the BJP and the TMC in Bengal by joining hands with the Congress when all these parties are responsible for the sorry state of the state. The CPM should not join hands with one corrupt party to counter the other corrupted parties,” a senior Forward Bloc leader told Onmanorama.
“Apart from the three seats, Raiganj and Murshidabad seats continue to be the bone of contention. Plus, we want to contest at least 18 seats. But the CPM is ready to give us only 12. So it's better to go it alone,” another senior state Congress leader said.
Represented by the CPM, Raiganj and Murshidabad are the only two Lok Sabha seats that the Left has in West Bengal, its erstwhile stronghold. These two places, however, are known as the bastions of Congress now.
The Left Front, which has to distribute seats among its constituents, is keen on fielding candidates in at least 31-32 seats.
Meanwhile, senior CPM leader Biman Basu, who was earlier in favour of working out a ‘permanent mechanism’ with the Congress, on Tuesday said the Left Front is not keen to go for the alliance as the ‘Mahagatbandhan’ might cost their vote share.
“The hard core Communists will never vote on the alliance and we might lose out a major vote share. So we will not go for an alliance with the Congress,” said Basu.
Md. Salim, Politburo member, is still backing the permanent alliance with the Congress.
However, amid speculation about the future of their alliance in West Bengal after the humiliating assembly poll defeat, a few leaders from the Left Front and the Congress are still divided over the issue of an alliance for the upcoming Lok Sabha election.
The Congress had won four seats in 2014 general elections. Of the four winners, Mausam Benazir Noor, MP from Malda North, defected to the ruling Trinamool Congress in January. The TMC had won 34 Lok Sabha seats out of 42 in the 2014 elections.
In the 2016 assembly polls, the CPM managed to win only 26 seats while RSP won three and Forward Bloc got two. The CPI managed to bag only one seat. The TMC got an absolute majority by winning 211 out of the 294 assembly seats in Bengal.
The move to forge a CPM-Congress alliance for the LS polls in West Bengal was a keenly watched issue in Kerala. The two parties are locked in a no-holds-barred battle in the southern state. CPM and Congress workers in Kerala were unhappy with the Bengal decision as this would have handed the BJP, the sworn enemy of both the parties, an easy weapon to target the ruling Left and the Opposition Congress in the southern state. The saffron party has been making fun of the two parties in Kerala saying that the two rival parties are fighting it together in the rest of the country.
