In a step taken well in advance of the 2019 lok Sabha polls, the Bengal unit of the CPI(M) has decided to ally with the Congress at hustings, party insiders said.

The State committee will send the resolution for ratification to the CPI(M) central committee, insiders said adding only a small number of members, about 7-8 of them, had voted against the alliance sources said.

On the basis of a ground report prepared by the Marxists who have realised that they have lost much of their organisational strength in the State once they ruled and that there is hardly any chance to clinch even a single seat on its own the State committee has decided “by the power of majority votes” to ally with the Congress, sources said.

Unlike in 2016 when the party took the decision pretty late and got little time to convince the people about the strategic shift in favour of a “bourgeois party” that had been a traditional enemy of the left, “this time round it will be convenient for the alliance, if one is arrived at, to reach out to the people in time.”

In 2014 Congress won four lok Sabha seats, the CPI(M) and the BJP won two each while the TMC clinched 34.

Though the CPI(M) leaders would not make an official comment before the central committee did so insiders said the party had taken its decision.

The CPI(M) leadership feels that the early timing of the decision will not only allow the party to carry the message to the people but also keep the Congress leadership under pressure to come clean on the issue.

The State Congress on the other hand is divided in two factions. While the one led by Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Adhir Chowdhury, Opposition leader Abdul Mannan and senior leaders OP Mishra and Manoj Chakrabarty has been towing a pro-left alliance the other group led by Subhankar Bhattacharya wants to go with the TMC so that the party has a better chance to win the four seats.

“The left is not as strong as it had been even in 2016 to ensure us a victory,” the parallel group says. This will again give the Congress a better place to bargain, insiders add. 

According to reports a ground report prepared by a committee led by OP Mishra favouring a pro-left line has already been sent to the party high command for its perusal.

The pro-left lobby argues that it will be futile to wait for the TMC as Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has already made it clear that she will go it alone in the polls.

Furthermore the group also feels that Banerjee is still not clear about her future stance on the BJP. “She is still trying to distinguish between good BJP and bad BJP which means the BJP led by lK Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Rajnath Singh is good and the one led by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah is bad. In that case she will have no problem to ally with the so-called good BJP if the situation so demands after the elections,” says the anti-TMC group in the Congress.

In fact Chowdhury on Wednesday asked Banerjee to make her stance clear on the BJP clear. “She has not yet made her stance clear. She must first make it clear that she will not side with them after the elections in any situation before a question on alliance is raised,” Chowdhury said.

The Congress and the CPI(M) leaders seem to agree that after the State elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh the BJP will find itself in a sticky wicket. “They are bound to fare poorly in all these three States. After this the Congress will gain in popularity and BJP’s position in Bengal will weaken,” said Mishra adding “after the three State polls the Congress will emerge as a natural choice in the national scene and Bengal will start looking at it in a different angle.”

The CPI(M) leadership also feels that being with the Congress will provide them a better dividend in the elections as the people, particularly the minorities will take the Congress more seriously considering its prospects in Delhi. And the party that will ally with the Congress will naturally benefit from its association.

The BJP’s performance in three States will directly hit its prospects in Bengal, the Marxist leaders say. “Firstly because the electorate will not back a party, that will in all likelihood lose power in Delhi.And secondly because they failed protect the anti-TMC voters who left us for protection. The TMC has poached their candidates and murdered their supporters at will, a senior CPI(M) leader said.