The Jot (alliance) cat tended to leap out of the bag with the AICC on Wednesday writing a formal invite to the Bengal left Front to remain present in Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi’s April 2 election rally at Durgapur.
Playing its card a tad cautiously though, the CPI(M) has agreed to send its representatives but not the big guns like Biman Bose, Md Salim or Surya Kanta Mishra.
“As I will be busy with other preoccupations I will not be able to make it but the party has decided to send our senior State Committee members like Bangsagopal Chowdhury and Gouranga Chatterjee,” Mishra a CPI(M) politburo member said.
He also said that all the left Front candidates from the region and the common party men will attend the rally on the said date.
In an unprecedented show of unity the left and the Congress workers were holding joint rallies throughout Bengal.
Out of 294 seats the Congress was contesting on 92 and the Congress-left backed nominees were contesting from 6 seats. The remaining seats are being fought by the left. Incidentally out of the seats the Congress and the left are contesting the two sides have not been able to reach any agreement in 11 seats where they are engaged in a “friendly fight” so to say.
Interestingly the left Front is backing the Congress candidate in Alipurduar seat against the Front partner RSP’s Nirmal Das a former MlA. Singularly the left had taken a lead of about 11,000 from Alipurduar Assembly segment in 2014 general elections leaving both the Cong and Trinamool behind.
However, predictions suggest the Trinamool has a fair chance of winning the seat if the RSP fights separately.