The Congress on Monday constituted a four-member committee under the chairmanship of West Bengal Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury to hold talks with the Left parties regarding seat-sharing and joint programmes for the upcoming West Bengal Assembly elections. The members are Abdul Mannan, Pradip Bhattacharya and Nepal Mahato.
Both the parties have engaged in talks for long to take on the ruling Trinamool Congress and an aggressive BJP, which made inroads in Bengal during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The committee has been chosen to meticulously work on the data and analysis and decide on the seats based on the ground reports from the workers of the alliances team.
West Bengal Congress in-charge Jitin Prasada said talks on seat sharing will begin soon and the party will fight with full force to restore the pride of Bengal which is being “destroyed by the BJP and TMC”.
Chowdhury had announced last month that the Congress high command had given its approval to tie up with the Left in West Bengal. The Congress had also contested the last assembly election in alliance with the Left. In the last election, the CPI-M had contested 148 seats and won 26. Congress had contested 92 but won 44, registering a better strike rate than its partner in the State. The TMC had swept the election by winning 211 of 295 seats.
The West Bengal assembly elections is expected to be a difficult terrain for the ruling TMC this year as the BJP has made massive inroads in Bengal with high pitched campaigns led by its top leaders including Home Minister Amit Shah. In the Lok Sabha elections 2019 BJP won 18 Lok Sabha seats with close to 41 per cent vote share which is just two per cent less than what TMC got.
BJP has sharpened its attack on Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in the recent past.
In one of the recent public rallies, Home Minister Amit Shah said that his party will form the next government by winning over 200 seats. AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi has also announced that his party will contest the next Assembly polls in Bengal.