Trinamool + Congress - Left: How INDIA Could Look In Bengal

The INDIA alliance, in all likelihood, will manifest in Bengal as a tie-up between the Congress and the Trinamool Congress, with the CPI(M) staying out amid its bitter rivalry with Mamata Banerjee's party.

Though the two are amenable to a tie-up in Bengal, negotiations on seat-sharing are expected to be tough. The Congress is apparently expecting to contest at least six of West Bengal's 42 Lok Sabha seats, a demand that the Trinamool Congress will find hard to accept.

Trinamool Congress sources say merely contesting seats should not be the focus, it should be to win the seats, something that the Congress cannot pull off with its current organisational strength in the state. The Congress won only two seats in Bengal in 2019, but the party's central leadership is keen on improving its strike rate in the state that sends the third highest number of MPs to parliament after Uttar Pradesh (80) and Maharashtra (48).

The Congress believes that joining hands with the Trinamool will help improve its tally. The party hopes to convince Mamata Banerjee to give up seats like Raiganj, Malda and Murshidabad.

Several national leaders of the Congress are wary of a tie-up with the Left in West Bengal, especially after its disastrous outcome in the 2021 state election. The two parties failed to win a single seat.

The Left is seen to be largely a depleted force electorally, with pockets of support in parts of the state. For a party that ruled the state unchallenged for more than three decades, the CPI (M)'s downfall has been remarkable. It has zero MPs or MLAs in Bengal and the decline has been steep over the past two general elections.

The Congress believes the CPI (M) has also not been very forthcoming about an alliance to take on the BJP in Bengal. Besides, the party is also worried about the contradiction of allies in Bengal fighting each other in Kerala. Besides confusing the electorate, it has complicated their national election campaigns, leaving them open to potshots from the BJP. The Congress feels it has much better prospects in Kerala than in Bengal. The Congress leadership favours prioritising the party's strategy in Kerala - it can take on the CPI(M) much more effectively in Kerala than it can fight the Trinamool Congress in Bengal.

The Congress leadership is also keenly aware - though a section of West Bengal leaders continues to push for an alliance with the Left due to their personal equations - that Left votes in the state have shifted to the BJP in droves. In Bengal, the phenomenon has been dubbed 'Baam Thekey Ram", which translates as "Left to Ram (pro-Hindu politics)". A good example of this is the election of the BJP's Khagen Murmu in Malda North, a former Congress bastion. Murmu was a communist who shifted to the BJP before the 2019 general election. A four-term CPI (M) MLA, he is now a BJP MP.  

The Left will also not vacate seats like the Raiganj for the Congress. The seat was held by the Congress before the Left won it in 2014. In 2019, it went to the BJP. The Congress's only worry is the Left cutting into its votes and indirectly helping the BJP. The CPI (M) also brought the Indian Secular Front (ISF) into the mainstream by diluting its own brand of politics. The move to bring the ISF, led by a Muslim cleric, into the electoral forefront in 2021 was seen as an ill-advised and strategic blunder by the Left, one that also hurt the Congress and left both with a tally of zero.

As for the Trinamool Congress, it has made inroads in the Congress bastions of Malda and Murshidabad. Bengal Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Choudhury managed to retain his seat in Baharampur and still has connect with the masses in the region but the Congress Malda North and Murshidabad to the BJP and Trinamool Congress. A division of Muslim votes is advantage BJP but if the Trinamool and the Congress join forces, it is a much easier fight for each. The consolidation of anti-BJP votes is of key importance to the two parties.

Mamata Banerjee has been vocal about the importance of a seat-sharing arrangement and has indicated that she is ready for talks with the Congress. Some state Congress leaders have been stalling these talks, which is baffling to many political analysts. Mamata Banerjee, a Congress alum, had close ties with leaders like ABA Ghani Khan Choudhury and Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi - Congress stalwarts from areas where the party hopes to contest - and this will be a key element of an accommodative stance that the Trinamool Congress may adopt towards the Congress. However, Adhir Choudhury's acrimony with Mamata Banerjee is a block the party may want out of the way as it hurtles towards the 2024 polls.