Bengal Congress to press for six seats for seat-sharing negotiations with Trinamul Congress in the state

Besides Behrampore and Malda South that Congress won in 2019, party wants Malda North, Murshidabad or Darjeeling, Raiganj, and Purulia

Mallikarjun Kharge

Meghdeep Bhattacharyya, TT, Calcutta, 20.12.23: Top Congress leaders in Bengal were on Tuesday asked to meet the representatives of the party's high-command in New Delhi on Wednesday purportedly with the primary objective of setting expectations within for seat-sharing negotiations with the Trinamul Congress in the state.

The Bengal Congress leaders were summoned hours after the party formed a five-member National Alliance Committee and a meeting of the INDIA bloc in Delhi on Tuesday.

Sources said the state unit of the Congress was mostly averse to an alliance with Mamata Banerjee’s party in Bengal but would demand during the seat-sharing negotiations that six of Bengal’s 42 Lok Sabha segments be left for the Grand Old Party in the next general election.

Besides Behrampore and Malda South that the Congress won in 2019, the party wants Malda North, Murshidabad or Darjeeling, Raiganj, and Purulia. Of them, Trinamul had won only Murshidabad, while the BJP had bagged the others in 2019.

“Those four-five seats used to be Congress strongholds and we still have sufficient presence there,” said a state Congress leader.

“At the INDIA meeting, Rahul Gandhi told her (Mamata) about Raiganj, besides Behrampore and Malda South,” he added.

The Congress’s national leadership, said sources, does not want to keep sitting on the Bengal consideration, as Trinamul chief Mamata Banerjee — who proposed for the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance a deadline of December 31 for solving the seat-sharing conundrum — has been publicly showing signs of a largely recalibrated, amenable attitude towards the Grand Old Party.

At the INDIA meeting, the Bengal chief minister not only proposed Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge’s name for leading the anti-BJP bloc of parties but also said she was willing to talk terms on the alliance with them for Bengal.

“She (Mamata) said she was willing, right away, to leave the two seats won by the Congress (Behrampore and Malda South) in 2019, and expects them to return the favour by leaving one seat each for us in Meghalaya and Assam…. She made it clear that she was open to dialogue and not averse to being a considerate ally,” said a senior in Trinamul after the meeting.

“She also said the Congress could directly take on the BJP in 300 of the 543 Lok Sabha seats, leaving the rest for INDIA allies, in the 1:1 formula,” he added, underscoring the fact that it was already a climbdown from her position on the Congress contesting 200-odd seats, where it remains in a direct fight with the BJP. The so-called 1:1 formula implies having a single INDIA candidate, the one with the highest winnability, in as many seats as possible.

“She said in states where the Congress fancies its chances despite the presence of strong regional players, such as the AAP in Punjab and Delhi, Shiv Sena (UBT) and the NCP in Maharashtra, and SP in Uttar Pradesh, it should let them lead the anti-BJP fight.”

While the Congress’s Bengal unit chief — also its leader in the Lok Sabha — Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury is already in Delhi, over 20 other leaders from the state will reach the national capital by Wednesday morning. Mamata’s bete noire Chowdhury’s acrimony towards her and unwillingness to consider a truck with her party are no secret, but he is purportedly ready to accept the high command’s decision on the matter.

The state unit is likely to have lengthy discussions with the National Alliance Committee comprising five veterans — former chief ministers Ashok Gehlot and Bhupesh Baghel, former Union ministers Mukul Wasnik and Salman Khurshid, besides Congress Working Committee member Mohan Prakash.

“The Congress is in a precarious situation with regard to INDIA and Bengal. In INDIA, we are bedfellows with Trinamul and the CPM. In Bengal, we have, for some time, been at daggers drawn with Trinamul and in an on-again, off-again relationship with the consistently friendly CPM,” said a state unit leader.

“This discomfort was amply captured by that image from the meeting of Rahul (Gandhi) in the middle, with Mamata and (CPM general secretary Sitaram) Yechury on either side… all three looking somewhat awkward,” he added.

During the meeting, said sources, Rahul also had a fairly lengthy sidebar with senior party colleague Jairam Ramesh and Yechury. Although it was Bengal-related, the outcome of that discussion is yet to be palpable, said the sources.

The level of resistance to an alliance with Trinamul that the Congress high command is likely to experience from sections in its state unit was indicated by statements of its chief spokesperson for the state, Soumya Aich Roy, on Tuesday.

Aich Roy and other leaders were visiting the Kulpi home of Congress activist Alfaz Halder, killed allegedly by Trinamul-backed miscreants ahead of the panchayat election in July, where he said – in the context of alliance negotiations between his party and that of Mamata in INDIA – that victims and perpetrators cannot share a journey towards a common cause.

“It is immaterial to us here, who is considering what alliance. Our people die in the hands of Trinamul every day, in Bengal,” he said.