West Bengal elections: Congress split over solo run or alliance
State unit divided on going alone or tying up with CPI(M) or TMC as leadership balances national priorities and ground realities ahead of elections
Confusion persists within the Congress over its strategy for the upcoming West Bengal Assembly election, with the party still undecided on whether to go it alone or forge an alliance with either the Trinamool Congress (TMC) or the CPI(M).
There is a difference of opinion among the party leaders in West Bengal, sources told The Federal. While a majority of the state unit favours going solo, arguing that the party needs to rebuild itself in a state where it currently has no MLAs, another group of leaders, mostly former MPs and one sitting MP, wants to align with the Left parties.
No clarity on alliances
Senior Congress leader and West Bengal in-charge Ghulam Ahmad Mir told The Federal that no “strategic meetings” have been held by the party on this issue and that clarity on the way forward for the state elections would emerge in the coming days.
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Mir acknowledged that there is a strong view within the party unit in favour of going it alone. “We have nothing to lose. However, nothing has been finalised. There is also a national perspective to this. TMC is in power in the state. They should consider the threat posed by communal forces in the state and the need to counter them effectively. We are not going to them (TMC). Every party has an equal responsibility to ensure communal forces do not thrive. We must also ensure there is no division of votes,” Mir told The Federal.
Mir also said that if the INDIA bloc were to contest the elections together, of which the TMC is also a part, the decision would be taken at the central level by the party presidents.
Solo push, minority worries
Congress leaders who strongly believe the party should contest all 294 Assembly seats argue that it has the potential to win at least a dozen seats. They contend that the Congress retains a significant presence in Murshidabad, Malda and West Dinajpur districts, which have substantial Muslim populations. “With the right candidate selection, nobody can challenge the Congress there,” sources within the party told The Federal.
They also pointed out that in the last Assembly elections, when the Congress was allied with the CPI(M), it finished second behind the TMC in several seats in these districts. As such, this group feels that going solo is a viable option, as it would spare the party from having to sacrifice winnable seats to alliance partners. They believe that past alliances with the CPI(M) or the TMC have only shrunk the Congress’s political space in the state.
However, party insiders said a major concern for the Congress in Murshidabad, Malda and West Dinajpur, districts with large Muslim populations, would be the alliance between Humayun Kabir’s newly formed Janata Unnayan Party (JUP) and Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM, both of which are seeking to mobilise Muslim voters. “They can argue that Muslims are inadequately represented in the Congress unit and have been treated merely as a vote bank,” a senior Congress leader explained.
Fault lines within state unit
Sources said that in recent meetings of the party’s state unit, several former MPs, including Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, Pradeep Bhattacharya, and former MLA Abdul Mannan from the Champdani constituency, expressed reservations about contesting alone. They added that the lone sitting MP, Isha Khan Chowdhury from the South Malda seat, also favours an alliance with the CPI(M). Also read | Bengal SIR on the boil as EC seeks criminal case against TMC MLA over vandalism
Several party leaders believe Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has a “soft corner” for the CPI(M), which they attribute to his Left-leaning ideology and his earlier association with the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) before joining the Congress. Repeated attempts by The Federal to contact Chowdhury, Khan Chowdhury, Bhattacharya and Mannan for their responses did not elicit any reply.
Sources are also not ruling out the possibility of the Congress aligning with the TMC if some leaders conclude that going it alone could lead to a division of votes and ultimately benefit the BJP.
