INDIA: Bengal Congress oppose alliance with TMC; CPI(M), too, distances itself

Kolkata: The Congress will be routed from West Bengal if it accepts Mamata Banerjee’s proposal on seat sharing to honour the spirit of the INDIA coalition, several leaders of the party in the eastern state said on Thursday, refusing to accept an alliance with Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the coming Lok Sabha polls.

The Bengal unit of the CPI(M), too, made it clear that it will snap its electoral understanding with Congress if the latter finds an ally in TMC.

Although Congress and CPI(M) earlier said the INDIA model will not work out in Bengal because they are opposed to both TMC and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), things took a turn on December 19 when the coalition leaders met in Delhi.

Banerjee, the TMC chairperson, urged the other parties to complete the seat sharing process by December 31 and said she will not field candidates from Bengal’s Berhampore and Malda South seats, which Congress holds since 1999 and 2009 respectively.

Sharp reactions from Bengal’s Congress and Left leaders have surfaced after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and senior All India Congress Committee (AICC) members called state Congress president and Berhampore MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Wednesday evening to discuss Banerjee’s proposal.

Recounting the Bengal assembly polls in 2011, in which Banerjee came to power for the first time with Congress as an ally, several veteran state Congress leaders, who did not wish to be named, told HT that TMC systematically weakened their organsation by triggering defections.

“We had to walk out of that first coalition government. Today, we don’t have a single legislator from Bengal. Our workers are attacked by the ruling party in every election. If we join hands with Banerjee once again it will be akin to writing the epitaph of the Congress in a state that it once ruled,” one of the veterans said on condition of anonymity.

Stating that he was representing the voices of party workers and sympathisers from Bengal, Koustav Bagchi, one of the young state Congress leaders, sent an e-mail to party president Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday.

“Unlike rest of the country, in West Bengal, the politics revolves around Trinamool Congress. BJP has gained ground lately because Congress is considered too soft on Trinamool. At this juncture, if we form an alliance with Trinamool, BJP would increase its vote share being the sole opposition of Trinamool and Congress will not have any ground to come back in 2026 Assembly elections,” Bagchi wrote.

“Trinamool leadership’s reputation is marred by credible corruption charges. If Congress tries to form alliance with Trinamool, we have to take responsibility for all the corruption of Trinamool leaders, against which Congress fought all along,” said the mail, a copy of which was seen by HT.

“At Wednesday’s meeting, Chowdhury opposed the idea of having any sort of alliance with TMC but left the decision to the national leadership saying they should bargain for seven to nine seats, instead of sticking to just the two that our party has been winning despite TMC contesting these,” a state Congress leader said on condition of anonymity.

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“Chowdhury also told Rahul Gandhi that Congress is ready to contest more seats such as Darjeeling, Raiganj, Purulia, Basirhat and Murshidabad. Rahul Gandhi said talks on seat sharing have not started yet and no decision would be taken without consulting state office-bearers,” the leader added.

“We left the decision to our party high command,” said PCC leader Nepal Mahato who accompanied Chowdhury to the meeting.

As Bengal CPI(M) leaders kept a close watch on the development, the party’s state secretary, Md Salim, said: “Mamata Banerjee is a leader who once called the BJP her natural ally and became a minister in the NDA government. We cannot have any seat sharing with a party that forms alliance with TMC.”

“Congress was never our political ally. In Bengal, we only had seat sharing agreements with Congress in two assembly elections but never in Lok Sabha polls,” Salim added.

That the Bengal chief minister is not willing to let a split in opposition votes help BJP in Bengal became apparent on December 4 when she reacted to the its recent victory in the Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh state elections.

“The Congress made some mistakes. We have to learn from it and prepare ourselves. BJP won by thin margins. It happened because of split in (opposition) votes. There should have been proper seat sharing,” she said at the state legislative assembly.

TMC leaders feel that Banerjee is formulating a strategy to stop BJP from taking advantage of any split in votes cast by the Muslim community which the saffron camp sees as TMC’s vote bank. Bengal’s Muslim population stood at 27.01 % during the 2011 census and is projected to have increased to around 30 % now. Swing in Muslim votes influence poll results in at least 120 of Bengal’s 294 assembly segments, surveys have shown.

TMC leaders reacted sharply to the stand taken by their Congress counterparts.

TMC Rajya Sabha member Santanu Sen said: “It was the 2011 state polls that rejuvenated Bengal Congress because of its alliance with TMC. But TMC secured 184 seats on its own. It didn’t need Congress to form the government. In the 2021 state elections, TMC crushed the BJP on its own. We can take BJP head on. Congress has to decide whether it wants to oust BJP from Bengal or help it.”

Bengal BJP leaders on the other hand said Congress is not the right platform for Chowdhury and others who want to continue their struggle against TMC.

Bengal BJP’s chief spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said: “Chowdhury and others must realise that Congress is not the right platform for them. Chowdhury is the right player on the wrong court. Some of them may surrender to the wishes of the national leadership just to become MPs. Congress has been reduced to a signboard in Bengal in any case. The signboard, too, will vanish after 2024.”