After Trinamool Congress announced not to ally with the grand old party in the West Bengal Assembly polls, it is to be seen whether Congress will forge an alliance with the Left Front or go it alone.
Sources in the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee (WBPCC) said there is a divided house in the grand old party over the alliance with the CPI(M)-led Left Front.
“Those against any understanding to continue in the 2026 Assembly polls have their logic. Congress first had an alliance with Trinamool Congress in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls and 2011 Assembly elections. Their logic is that Trinamool Congress constantly weakened Congress in West Bengal by poaching the latter’s elected public representatives one after another,” said a senior state Congress leader.
“This section also feels that the seat-sharing arrangement with Left Front, which started since 2016 Assembly polls and continued till the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, had blurred the vision of the state Congress leadership to strengthen its organisational strength in the state and instead depend entirely on the seat-sharing arrangement with Left Front,” the leader said.
However, the state Congress leader added that there is an opposite view within the state unit of the party on this matter.
“They feel that Congress’ current organisational strength in West Bengal is in such a state, that any decision to go alone in the 2026 Assembly polls will mean accepting the defeat before the battle is fought. Now since both Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee have ruled out all possibilities of any Congress-Trinamool Congress alliance in the 2026 polls, the only alternative for Congress in case of any seat-sharing arrangement is with the Left Front,” the state Congress leader said.
However, he added, Congress’ central high command is not in favour of enforcing any decision on this issue on the state leadership.
“Rather our central leadership wants to reach a decision only after feeling the pulse of the state Congress leadership and more importantly the grassroots level Congress workers. A delegation of the All India Congress committee is expected to be on a tour to West Bengal either in June or July this year which might be headed by our national president Mallikarjun Kharge. This delegation will interact with the different levels of state leadership on this issue and only after that, any decision on seat sharing arrangement will be reached,” said the WBPCC leader.
Complications on the seat sharing agreement are there on the part of CPI(M) as well, which surface from the proposals in the draft political resolution for the 24th party Congress scheduled at Madurai in Tamil Nadu in April this year.
In that draft political resolution, released last month, the CPI(M)’s central leadership focussed more on independent political lines in the coming days rather than on electoral understanding.
“The party should pay more attention to the independent political campaign and mass mobilisation around the political platform of the party. There should be no blurring of our independent identity or diminishing of our independent activities in the name of electoral understanding or alliances,” the draft political resolution of CPI(M) read.
To maintain the independent line, the draft resolution had cautiously touched upon West Bengal and Tripura, where the CPI(M)- led Left Front had electoral understanding and seat-sharing arrangements with Congress in the past elections.
“A significant increase in the strength of the party requires the rebuilding and expansion of the party and the Left in West Bengal and Tripura. In West Bengal, while conducting mass struggles and movements, special attention should be paid to working among the rural poor and organising them. The party has to focus more on the political and ideological fight against the BJP while opposing both the TMC and BJP,” the draft political resolution as regards the West Bengal perspective has stressed.
