After prolonged deliberations, the West Bengal unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has indicated its willingness to contest the upcoming Assembly elections in alliance with the Congress.
The decision emerged from the CPI(M)’s three-day central committee meeting held in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala.
While the Left party has extended the proposal, the Congress is yet to formally respond. West Bengal Congress president, Subhankar Sarkar, has repeatedly argued in favour of contesting the elections independently, however, party sources say the final decision will rest with the Congress high command.
The CPI(M) has also expressed interest in forging alliances with the Congress in Assam and Puducherry. In contrast, Kerala will remain a key battleground where the Left and the Congress are set to fight each other directly. In Tamil Nadu, the Left is expected to continue its alliance with the ruling DMK.
The question of a Left-Congress alliance in West Bengal dominated discussions at the central committee meeting, with reports suggesting sharp disagreements among leaders at one stage. Besides the central leadership, a section of Bengal’s CPI(M) leaders remains opposed to the alliance.
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“They point to past electoral outcomes, arguing that tie-ups with the Congress in the 2016 and 2021 Assembly elections and the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha polls failed to yield gains for the Left. In 2016, the Left-Congress alliance managed to retain representation in the Assembly, but the Congress won nearly double the number of seats compared to the Left. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Left drew a blank in Bengal while the Congress secured two seats. The 2021 Assembly elections saw both parties fail to win a single seat.
The trend continued in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, with the Left again winning no seats and the Congress managing just one. These results were cited in the meeting,” said a CPI(M) central committee member from Bengal.
Debate over the alliance has persisted since the recent electoral debacles. Former state Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury was a strong proponent of a tie-up with the Left, a position that had earlier received approval from the Congress high command. His successor, Subhankar Sarkar, holds a contrasting view. He has argued within party forums that aligning with the Left would not help the Congress reclaim its lost vote base.
According to Sarkar, sections of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) electorate are disillusioned and could be open to supporting the Congress. However, he believes such voters would be unwilling to shift if the Congress were to ally with the Left. Congress leaders also feel that much of the party’s traditional vote base has migrated to the TMC, and regaining it would require maintaining distance from the Left.
The CPI(M), however, maintains that there is no viable alternative to a broader understanding with the Congress to counter both the BJP and the TMC in the state.
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