In West Bengal, the left front, helmed by the CPI(M), and the Congress will hold a mega rally in the coming months. The Congress and the left front, after their dismal performance in the Lok Sabha polls last year, had decided to fight as an alliance in Bengal in the coming polls. They had decided to prepare a "common minimum programme", based on which they would launch a joint fight against the BJP and the TMC in the state ahead of next year's assembly polls.
Seat-sharing talks were held on Thursday, on the basis of which the alliance was announced. Left front chairman Biman Bose, leader of the opposition in the outgoing assembly Abdul Mannan of the Congress, and other leaders participated in the discussions. Leaders of the Congress and the left have been holding parleys on seats that would be fought by each of the parties. The Congress High Command and the central leadership of constituent parties of the left have given a go-ahead to their state units for a seat-sharing arrangement.
The parties have decided to jointly hold a mega rally at the Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata either in February or in March, Bose said after the day's meeting.
The left and the Congress had contested the 2016 assembly poll in the state in a seat-sharing arrangement, but the alliance had fallen apart after that, and the left and the Congress fought the 2019 Lok Sabha elections on their own. In the 2016 assembly elections, the left-Congress alliance won 76 seats, with the Congress winning 44 seats and the left emerging victorious in only 32 constituencies.
The left front failed to open its account in West Bengal in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, while the Congress could manage to win two seats. The state has 44 Lok Sabha constituencies.
-Inputs from PTI