LS election effect: Churn in Bengal CPI(M) over tie-up with Congress

Being reduced to zero again in West Bengal in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls, debates have started in the CPI(M) on the justification of carrying forward the electoral alliance with Congress in the future.

Congress and CPI(M) are partners of the INDIA bloc.

Insiders in the party’s state committee claimed that initial internal analysis of the election disaster has revealed the continuation of the same old phenomenon where although a smooth transfer of dedicated Left voters in support of Congress candidates wherever applicable was achieved, a similar reciprocation from the side of Congress did not happen.

Insiders also said that serious questions on the practicality of continuing the seat-sharing agreement with Congress were raised during the review of the election results by the state committee of the party that concluded late Wednesday evening.

A state committee member of CPI(M) said that this same phenomenon was witnessed both in the previous two state Assembly elections in 2016 and 2021 and continued in 2024 as well.

“From the initial analysis, it is clear that the dedicated Congress voters have not accepted us as the natural ally of the party they are dedicated to. So in the seats where we fielded our candidates, the choice of the dedicated Congress workers was between Trinamool Congress and BJP. The result was zero for us,” he added.

Secondly, he added, there were also introspections in the review on how far the grassroots-level party workers accepted the seat-sharing arrangement with the country’s oldest national party spontaneously rather than taking it as a decision passed on to them by the high command.

“Precisely, that is why the picture projected in the pre-poll internal survey reports sent by the lower-rung committees from different districts to the higher leadership was not reflected in any way in the final results,” another state committee member said.

Another important issue, insiders said, that was raised in the review meeting was the necessity of going back to the party’s traditional form where there was a thin line between the dedicated organisational administrators and leaders contesting the electoral battles.

The dyed-in-the-wool section in CPI(M) has reminded that the legendary party organisers like Pramod Dasgupta, Saroj Mukherjee, Sailen Dasgupta and Anil Biswas, all deceased, dedicated their entire lives to streamlining the party’s organisational network without directly participating in the electoral battle.

Even the current Left Front chairman in West Bengal, Biman Bose, too has followed the same principle throughout his life.