Bengal assembly polls: Cong, Left decide to contest 77 seats they won in 2016
The Congress and the Leftparties on Monday decided that in the upcoming West Bengalassembly elections, they will contest the seats they had wonrespectively in the 2016 polls while talks will continue forthe remaining constituencies.
The Left-Congress alliance in 2016 had won 77 seats,out of which the Congress had emerged victorious in 44.
“Today we have decided that we will keep therespective 44 and 33 seats that the Congress and the Left hadwon in 2016. On the remaining 217 seats, the talks are on,”senior Congress leader Pradip Bhattacharya said at a jointpress conference.
He expressed hope that the seat-sharing arrangementwill be completed by the end of this month.
West Bengal Left Front Chairman and CPI(M) Politburomember Biman Bose, who was present at a meeting in which thedecision was taken, said that discussions were also held onjoint campaigning.
According to sources in the Left parties and theCongress sources, the decision on 77 seats has come as arelief for both sides as discussions on certain constituenciesare in a deadlock situation.
“Now the parleys on the remaining 217 seats will bebased on who was in the second or third position and voteshare the party had secured,” a senior Left leader said.
A senior Congress functionary said that the party,taking a cue from its performance in the recent Bihar pollswhere it bagged 18 out of the 70 seats it contested, hasdecided to focus on seats where it has good presence and aconsiderable vote-share.
“We wont go for number of seats. Rather we would gofor winnability of seats” he said.
In 2016, The Congress and Left Front had foughttogether and bagged 77 seats in the 294-member assembly. Thealliance broke after the CPI(M)-led Left Front walked away.
During the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the proposedCongress-CPI(M) alliance fell apart after the parties wereunable to reach an agreement on seat sharing.
After the dismal performance of the Congress, whichbagged only two Lok Sabha seats and the CPI(M), which failedto open its account, the parties decided to come together tofight the 2021 assembly polls.
Elections to the state assembly are likely to be heldin April-May this year.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Federal staff and is auto-published from a syndicated feed.)
