The Bengal Pradesh Congress leadership is ready with a claim of 102 Assembly seats should Rahul Gandhi accede to their demand for an anti-Trinamool Congress alliance with the left Front in the coming Assembly elections.
The Congress vice-president is scheduled to meet senior Bengal leaders on Monday. Though there has been no official communique on the agenda, the Monday’s meeting assumes importance against the backdrop of a sustained demand from the PCC leaders for an alliance with the left.
In the long list of invitees from the PCC are State Congress president Adhir Chowdhury, his predecessors, Manas Bhunia, party veteran Somen Mitra, Rajya Sabha MP Pradip Bhattacharya, his lok Sabha colleagues Abu Hasem Khan Chowdhury and Mausam Benazir Noor, former MP Deepa Dasmunshi Congress legislature Party leader Md Sohrab, senior PCC leaders Abdul Mannan and OP Mishra.
Among them Chowdhury, Mitra, Mannan, Khan Chowdhury and Mishra have openly backed the alliance while leaders like Dasmunshi and Bhattacharya have not yet played their cards. Bhunia on the other hand has advocated the ekla chalo policy.
Notwithstanding their various stands the PCC leaders are unanimous about what they say the “notoriously dictatorial Government being run by Mamata Banerjee.”
Said Somen Mitra, “we had past alliances with the Trinamool. We also have some experience of dealing with the left during UPA one. We have learnt from our experience that at best the left can ditch us, but the Trinamool will decimate us in Bengal. This is evident from the way they have forced our leaders particularly in South Bengal either with money or with muscle power to join their party.”
Chowdhury said “I cannot say for now about any alliance with the left but I can say that there will be no alliance with the Trinamool,” adding “whatever is the outcome of talks there seems to have developed an alliance at the ground level.”
Another leader said the “pressure is so much from below that if we do not form an alliance then our support line may vertically split and many of our leaders may not join the election works.”
The left-Congress camaraderie has been more evident with a series of joint meetings held by the mass organisations of the two groups. Of late the mass organisations like INTUC, Naba Parjaya and Chhatra Parishad have joined the meetings called by the left wing organisations like DYFI, SFI, CITU, AITUC, State Government Employees’ Coordination Committee.
Meanwhile, PCC sources said they had prepared a list of 102 Assembly seats which they will claim from the left if the high command accedes to the demand for an alliance. “These seats are based on the 2011 and 2014 election results,” said a PCC member.
When asked as to whether they are adamant on the number of seats or whether they will scale down their demands the leader said things depended upon how Delhi approached the issue.
The left leadership refused to comment on “hearsay statements,” adding “such talks are not held in media houses.”