Left Front to hold meeting with Congress to discuss modalities of joint movement, bypolls

KOLKATA: The CPI(M)-led Left Front on Tuesday decided to hold a meeting with the West Bengal Congress leadership to discuss modalities of joint movement and campaign for the upcoming Assembly polls in the state. According to sources in the Left Front, it was decided that a meeting would be held with the Congress leadership where several aspects of the joint movement, a common minimum programme (CMP) and modalities of the joint announcement of candidates for the November 25 by-polls will be held.

“We will soon hold a meeting with the Congress, probably by the end of this week. Several aspects and modalities of seat-sharing and joint movement will be discussed,” a senior Left Front leader said after the meeting of the bloc ended late in the evening. The Congress and the CPI(M) had in August sealed a seat adjustment for the upcoming by-polls to three Assembly constituencies in West Bengal to stop the march of the BJP and the Trinamool Congress in the state.

The state leadership of the two parties decided in a meeting late on Friday that while the Congress will contest North Dinajpur district’s Kaliaganj seat and West Midnapore district’s Kharagpur seat, the CPI(M)-led Left Front will fight Nadia district’s Karimpur seat. The development comes in the backdrop of the BJP making deep inroads in Bengal and placing itself as the main challenger to the ruling Trinamool Congress by pushing the traditional Congress and Left Front to distant third and fourth positions respectively.

The BJP in 2019 Lok Sabha elections bagged 18 out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state, only four short of the TMC. The TMC”s tally has come down from 34 in 2014 to 22 seats in this election.

The CPI(M)-led Left Front has drawn a blank and the Congress tally came down from four to two in Bengal. The CPI(M) and the Congress had forged an alliance in Bengal in 2016 assembly polls but it failed to evoke much impact. In 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the proposed Congress-CPI(M alliance fell apart after both the parties failed to reach an agreement on the seat-sharing deal. PTI