I.N.D.I.A Alliance Breaks Down In Bengal
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2024-01-24 08:36:20
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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
View all posts by this Author
Finally, it's confirmed. Bengal chief minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee said on Wednesday that her party will not have an alliance with the Congress in the state and will contest all 42 Lok Sabha seats alone. Despite being in the I.N.D.I.A alliance, the TMC had earlier said that it will not ally with the Left Front in Bengal. Hence, for all practical purposes, the I.N.D.I.A bloc has ceased to exist in the state.
That the TMC was not willing to concede space to national alliance partners in Bengal was apparent from day one. Mamata Banerjee had always maintained that the party strongest in a region should take on the BJP or its NDA partners. She had advocated a single opposition candidate against the NDA nominees and has always maintained that since the TMC was the strongest in Bengal, it was the best placed to challenge the BJP in the state. Yet, it was willing to concede two seats - which the Congress had won in 2019 - to the alliance partner. But the talks never materialized and Banerjee said today that she has "no relations with Congress" while stressing that she had spoken with no one in the Congress about sharing seats in the state.
With senior Congress leader and habitual Mamata-baiter Adhir Ranjan Choudhary making wild statements since the last two months, TMCs patience was wearing thin. The Congress had demanded 10-14 seats, something which the TMC was never going to agree to. Even if it was a pressure tactic to get more than 2 seats, the fact that the Congress national leadership made no efforts to talk to Banerjee shows that the Congress was not seriously interested.
The scenario that now emerges is that in all 42 Lok Sabha seats in Bengal, there will be three-cornered contests as the Congress and the Left might come to an understanding over seat-sharing. But in effect, it is going to be a direct contest between the TMC and the BJP as the Congress and the Left have little influence in the state barring a few (3-4) seats.
