Rift In Congress-Left Alliance Before Rural Polls In West Bengal

Fissures have appeared in Congress-Left Front alliance less than a month before panchayat elections are scheduled in West Bengal. CPI(M) has unilaterally declared candidates in Murshidabad, of all places, an area known to be the stronghold of state Congress chief, Adhir Ranjan Choudhury.

As of now, out of 78 Zilla Parishad (ZP) seats in this border district, the CPI(M) nominees will contest in 58 constituencies. Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) will contest in 23 seats, leaving three seats to Forward Bloc and two to CPI, thereby leaving just two seats up for negotiation with Congress, which had been in rain and shine with the front for past eight summers.

The Left Front decision has come as an unpleasant surprise to Congress, which had defeated Trinamool Congress candidate at Sagardighi by-election in this district with Left support. It is another matter that the Congress nominee Bairon Biswas crossed over to the Trinamool recently.

While the starkly unequal seat-sharing decision was a display of realpolitik on part of CPI(M), the Congress is hardly in a position to accuse it of infidelity in a poll alliance. After all, the two had not been equal partners in terms of reaping political dividend.

Fielding candidates unilaterally in Murshidabad seems to be an expression of letting off the inter-party resentment in CPI(M), following Biswas’s defection. Post Biswas’s switching sides, several district level leaders had voiced their difference with the top leadership over the alliance with Congress cobbled together before 2016 state Assembly elections.

The resentment of these district leaders from Burdwan, Birbhum, Nadia and several south Bengal districts have been two fold. According to the irate leaders of the Left Front, if the state Congress leadership cannot keep its flock together for even a few months, citing Biswas’s defection, then they think it’s time to give second thoughts to continuing support to the Congress.

Moreover, it was alleged that while the Front, read CPI(M), activists had campaigned with great vigour for Congress nominees, their Congress counterparts did not return the favour for their CPI(M) candidates in successive elections. The lack of shared enthusiasm was stated as the reason behind more Congress candidates winning in 2016 Assembly election than CPI(M) nominees.

These CPI(M) leaders had advocated fielding candidates belonging to the Left Front in the spheres of Left influence. In other words, it opposed any decision of the leadership to let Congress candidates contest from areas where it had little organisational base.

State party secretary, Mohammad Salim tried to pour oil on troubled waters when he said that Biswas’s defection was a pointer to TMC leadership developing cold feet at Congress-Left alliance. But it did not cut much ice.

The situation in Murshidabad is the fallout of this inter-party distrust. The CPI(M) leadership was left with little option but to accede to the resentful voices from the districts.

At the end of the day, state Congress chief Choudhury finds himself in an unenviable position. He has announced that Congress and the Left will be in alliance in the panchayat polls.  But Choudhury had never thought that he would find his party in a subsidiary alliance with the Left, despite his heading the largest Opposition party in the Lok Sabha. The Behrampore MP has failed to read the tealeaves.

The Murshidabad panchayat poll’s ZP seat declaration allocation does not put an end to negotiation in the two other tiers of panchayat — gram panchayat and panchayat samitis. Neither the Congress nor the Left are in a position to walk away from the negotiation table.  Because winning the gram panchayats and panchayat samitis are essential preconditions of running the Zilla Parishads. It is here that the negotiation skills of the Congress and Left leaders will be tested.

At the ground level, the voices of CPI(M)’s Murshidabad district secretary, Jamir Mollah may appear to ring out louder in the matter of seat-sharing in Murshidabad, a traditional Congress territory for decades. But given the impending meet between former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and senior Left leaders, together with other stalwarts of national politics scheduled to be held at Patna on 23 June, the Left read CPI(M) backtracking in the matter of seat-sharing in the coming panchayat polls in West Bengal cannot be ruled out. (IPA Service)