Junior Left allies throw a spanner in Cong-Left seat-sharing plans in Bengal

Kolkata, April 9 (IANS) Though the Congress and the Left Front led by the CPI-M are contesting the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls together in West Bengal, there are a few seats where the junior Left allies, in particular the All India Forward Bloc, have thrown a spanner in the seat-sharing plans by fielding their own candidates. 

A close look at the constituencies where both the Left Front and the Congress have announced their candidates till now shows that there is not a single seat where a CPI-M nominee is pitted against a Congress candidate, or vice-versa.

However, Left allies Forward Bloc (two seats) and the Communist Party of India (one seat) have gone against the seat-sharing plans by fielding their own candidates in three seats where the Congress has also put up their nominees.

Before the 2009 Lok Sabha polls when the Left Front used to contest on its own, CPI-M as the leader of the front used to contest 32 out of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state, followed by the Revolutionary Socialist Party (four seats), Forward Block, and the CPI (three seats each).

The CPI-M this time has fielded candidates on 23 seats, nine less than the 32 constituencies it used to contest earlier.

According to CPI-M sources, when the initial talks started within the Left Front about the seat-sharing pact with the Congress, the CPI-M leadership had proposed that as the front leader, it would make the maximum sacrifice in leaving seats for the Congress, while the other three allies were requested to forego at least one seat each.

However, Left Front sources said that since the beginning, the Forward Bloc was adamant about not sacrificing a single constituency that came to its kitty since the post-delimitation phase.

Despite repeated requests from the CPI-M leadership to forgo the Purulia Lok Sabha seat in favour of the Congress, the Forward Bloc leadership refused to buzz.

It has now fielded candidates from three constituencies, namely Purulia, Cooch Behar and Barasat, two of which are also being contested by the Congress -- Purulia and Cooch Behar.

The CPI, on its part, has sacrificed one of the three allotted seats but that sacrifice has been made in favour of the CPI-M, not the Congress.

The CPI has not fielded any nominee from the Basirhat Lok Sabha constituency which is being contested by CPI-M's Nirapada Sardar, one of the faces of the Sandeshkhali movement.

However, both the CPI and the Congress have announced to contest the Ghatal Lok Sabha seat independently.

On Sunday, the Congress announced the name of Papiya Chakraborty as its candidate from Ghatal, only to withdraw her candidature barely 24 hours later on Monday evening. However, the party maintained that the name of an alternative candidate from Ghatal will be announced soon.

The CPI is also contesting the Medinipur Lok Sabha seat, though the Congress has not fielded any candidate from there.

The RSP, which used to contest four seats in the post-delimitation phase, has been the most flexible among the junior Left Front allies.

Since the beginning of the internal dialogues, the RSP leadership readily agreed to sacrifice its stake in the Baharampur constituency in support of sitting Congress Lok Sabha member Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.

The party has fielded candidates from two constituencies so far -- Alipurduar and Balurghat. It has not yet announced any candidate from the Jaynagar Lok Sabha constituency in South 24 Parganas district, which used to be the party’s stronghold once.