By Tirthankar Mitra
CPI(M)’s West Bengal unit secretary Md. Salim’s assertion that the CPM will not campaign for INDIA bloc candidates in the 2024 general elections in West Bengal has landed state Congress leaders in more than a spot of bother for good reason.
Having pitted what remains of its dwindling number of activists, together with the CPI(M) cadre force, against the burgeoning number of Trinamool supporters in successive elections since the 2016 Assembly polls, if the poll tie-up with TMC fructifies in West Bengal, the state Congress will be with an ally who has let it down in the past and has no reason not to do so again.
The 2016 alliance between two ideologically divergent political outfits, the Congress and the CPI(M), struck gold for the Grand Old Party. The Congress emerged as the principal Opposition party. And the Congress and the CPI(M) maintained perfect floor coordination led by leader of the Opposition, Abdul Mannan during the Assembly sessions. Joint agitation in Kolkata and the districts were also organised.
If successive elections thereafter did not yield successful results, the alliance stayed put. Though the Congress and the Trinamool Congress had joined forces and ousted the 34-year CPI(M)-led Left Front in 2011, things had soured for the Congress thereafter.
The Congress had to leave the government. But during its stay in it and for months thereafter, the state Congress leadership had watched helplessly as its ranks thinned with desertions to the TMC. The process continues. Small wonder, the state Congress felt itself to be safe rather than sorry in the company of the CPI(M) since 2016 to date.
But the formation of the INDIA bloc marked the beginning of an uneasy coexistence between Congress, Trinamool Congress and the Left. Sitaram Yechury, the CPI(M) representative in this anti-BJP bloc, never hid his party ‘s apathy for the TMC and its government in West Bengal.
The feeling was reciprocated. It placed the West Bengal Congress in an unenviable situation. It is loath to let go of a tested political ally. But both the Congress and the Left being sans any representative in the state Assembly, the state Congress is in dire need of the TMC activists in the 2024 elections.
The Congress hopes against hope that CPI(M) activists would come to its aid during the election campaign next year. But the CPM’s decision to stay away from the INDIA bloc’s campaign has already been voiced by Yechuri. Md Salim’s words have merely underscored it. The CPI(M), as things stand now, is set to take on the BJP-led NDA on its own in West Bengal.
In the process, it will also lock horns with Trinamool Congress and some Congress nominees falling to “friendly fire” is not ruled out. The state and central leadership of CPI(M) are loath to let go of this ammunition in the campaign against the Trinamool dispensation. There exists corruption charges against several TMC ministers together with some of the senior functionaries of the ruling dispensation.
The state Congress leadership is also only too aware of these allegations and knows well that its nominees will be saddled with them if the electoral tie-up with TMC takes place. But it can no longer drag its feet on this issue as the party’s central leadership seeks an electoral tie-up with Trinamool Congress in West Bengal by the end of this month. The compulsions of the INDIA bloc alliance demand this. But the TMC leadership is unwilling to grant Congress the number of seats it is asking for in West Bengal.
At a recent meeting in Delhi between the state and central leaderships of the Congress, the latter rubbished the claim for more seats sought from Trinamool. It cited a long line of electoral reverses the Congress had suffered in West Bengal post 2021 Assembly polls in which both the Congress and the Left were left without any representation in the state Assembly.
Not much ice is cut by the argument of the state Congress that an electoral alliance with the TMC for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls would erode the political credibility gained after the 2016 election results. The national leadership of the party seems to have made up its mind to further the electoral interests of the INDIA bloc.
The state Congress leadership in West Bengal is between a rock and a hard place. No matter whether an electoral alliance with the TMC spells success or failure, the state Congress will be inviting a credibility gap for itself after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. (IPA Service)
