By Tirthankar Mitra
KOLKATA: With 2026 Assembly elections scheduled for March/April, West Bengal unit of Congress finds itself at a crossroads. It has to make a choice between going for an electoral alliance with the state’s ruling dispensation Trinamool Congress or revive its poll pact with the CPI(M)-led Left Front with which it has been hitching it’s band wagon since 2016 Assembly elections.
The Congress leadership both at the state and national level is painfully aware that a poll alliance with TMC will not be a pact with honour. In fact, it will only be rewarded with “crumbs” in an electoral alliance with the TMC. In the present state assembly, the Congress has no representation like its earlier poll partner Left Front. The BJP’s strength has gone down to 65 from the original strength of 77 after 2021 assembly polls.
Moreover, the handful of pockets of influence which the Congress still retains, are being gobbled up by the state’s ruling party. To make matters worse, it is not unlikely for the Congress legislators who have won thanks to TMC support will join the latter. Now considering the pluses, getting a few seats in the state Assembly could help the Congress begin a journey of revival. And it would be treading a path of political relevance too.
Ever since the declaration of 2021 Assembly poll results, the Congress has been unrepresented in the state Assembly, though in 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress got one seat while the Left Front drew blank. Drawing closer to Trinamool post a poll pact in West Bengal stands to benefit Congress in national politics. Congress leads the anti-BJP alliance INDIA in which the TMC is a key constituent.
The fact remains that Congress took on both BJP and TMC in 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the INDIA alliance notwithstanding. The decision to take on TMC led to Congress ending up with only one seat, a factor which would be pondered upon by Congress leadership.
Indecision and delay boiling down to kowtowing to TMC have .marked state Congress ‘s actions ever since Suvankar Sarkar replaced Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury as West Bengal Congress chief early this year. Chowdhury favoured the policy of anti- TMC alliance. TMC leadership blamed him later for the failure of alliance with the Congress.
Adhir Chowdhury’s political stature turned out to be a weighing factor when he sealed a poll pact with the Left. Front in both 2021 assembly polls and 2024 Lok Sabha polls. He was powerful then, the Lok Sabha member as also the leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party. Sarkar, on the other hand, is yet to win an election and is considered to be a political minnow in his own party.
Even a cursory look at the political situation it becomes plain TMC and Congress are getting closer. A message to fall in line is conveyed to the state unit after MPs of both parties together with those of the INDIA bloc closed ranks against Special Intensive Revision (SIR) at New Delhi recently and Rahul Gandhi was seen tending to a manhandled Mahua Moitra and others from TMC.
Both TMC and Congress stands to gain at the national level if Sarkar defers to the wishes of the central leadership of the party to ally with Trinamool. But the leadership will have to be ready for being under TMC domination with little independence of its own in West Bengal even if it gets a token representation in the state Assembly courtesy TMC.
Playing second fiddle is the last thing the Congress will do if it is in electoral pact with the CPI(M)-led Left, another member of the INDIA bloc. But the poll results of this alliance nosediving since 2021 Assembly polls and 2024 Lok Sabha elections have made national leadership of Congress chary of it.
The internal assessment made by the West Bengal Congress states in a poll pact with TMC, the former will have no bargaining power in sharing seats as happened in 2011 elections. Whatever is left of committed Congress votes will go the Left or BJP, a senior leader said on condition of anonymity.
Putting up a brave face, state Congress chief Sarkar said that the Congress is gearing up to contest in all the 294 constituencies from West Bengal. He knows that this is not even pep talk as he himself admitted earlier that the final decision rests with the national leadership.
Meanwhile, Sarkar has criticised the TMC for poll “irregularities”. But his words lack the acerbity of his predecessor, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.
There is no denying the fact Congress-Trinamool relations have improved after Sarkar assumed office. Trinamool supremo, Mamata Banerjee may concede some seats to Congress in the coming elections, a factor which Congress national leadership is banking on.
Sticking to his earlier stand, former state chief Chowdhury said that he is in favour of a poll pact with the Left whose secular credentials are unquestionable. The Left Front partners are scheduled to meet on August 19 to decide on the allotment of seats among them in districts.
As things stand now, the state Congress is likely to walk down the road it has not travelled since 2016 Assembly elections. After all, it seems to be the way to regain political relevance in the state in which it has been ousted from corridors of power for more than four decades. (IPA Service)
