The Congress and the Left Front will contest the West Bengal Assembly election 2021 in alliance. Congress president Sonia Gandhi has her nod for the alliance. This was confirmed by West Bengal Congress president and Lok Sabha MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.
In a post on Twitter, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said, “Today, the Congress high command has formally approved the electoral alliance with the Left parties in the impending election of West Bengal.”
The leader of the Left Front in Bengal, the Communist Party of India-Marxist’s central committee had approved the alliance decision in October itself. The proposal was then moved by the Bengal unit of the CPI-M for alliance with the Congress.
This is a significant development in Bengal politics which has looked centred on a ruling Trinamool Congress versus rival Bharatiya Janata Party fight in recent months. This formally makes the Bengal Assembly election a triangular contest.
This is not the first time that the Congress and the Left will contest the Bengal election together. They had an electoral alliance in Bengal in 2016 state polls, when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress returned to power with a greater majority.
But back then the central committee of the CPI(M) had not approved the Bengal unit’s decision to contest assembly election in alliance with the Congress. The experiment did not succeed as the alliance won just 71 seats, with the Congress becoming a senior partner with 40 seats.
West Bengal will go to the polls in April-May for its 294 assembly seats. A party or coalition needs to win more than 147 seats to form government in Bengal.
