A fresh hurdle has come up in the way of a Left-Congress seat sharing for the coming Parliament elections as both the parties have staked claim to Raiganj Lok Sabha seat of North Dinajpur district.
While Congress leaders have decided to field their candidate and claimed that they deserve the seat as it is one of the traditional bases of the party, the Left is not willing to budge as CPM candidate Mohammad Salim had won from the constituency in 2014.
“We want to make it clear that we will not leave the Raiganj Parliament seat to the CPM. Even if there is any alliance or adjustment of seats with the Left in Bengal, we will go ahead and field our candidate in the seat and will contest alone,” North Dinajpur district Congress chief and Raiganj MLA Mohit Sengupta said on Friday.
The CPM had won Raiganj in 1991, 1996 and in 1998. In 1999, Congress leader Priya Ranjan Das Munshi wrested in the seat from the Left Front.
He retained the seat in 2004 and in 2009, his wife Dipa had won.
However, in 2014, CPM fielded Salim and he defeat Dipa. The Left secured the seat again after a gap of 15 years.
In fact, it is the only seat among the eight Lok Sabha seats of north Bengal where the Left had won in 2014.
On Thursday, CPM leaders had held marathon discussions with its allies like the RSP, Forward Bloc and the CPI at Alimuddin Street. Surjya Kanta Mishra, Biman Bose, Rabin Deb and other CPM leaders made it clear to the Left partners that an electoral strategy for seat sharing between the Left Front and the Congress had to be worked out.
At the meeting, the CPM leaders clarified that they were ready to offer 12 Lok Sabha seats to the Congress from their quota of the Left Front.
“Winning seats would be retained by the respective parties, while in other cases, the Number 2 would be given the chance to contest. As per this strategy, the only hurdle is to make the RSP ready to give up their claim to contest the Behrampore seat, which Adhir Chowdhury has been winning for long. Otherwise, the Left partners are retaining their nine seats. We are ready to sacrifice 12 seats from our quota,” a senior CPM leader said.
In 2014, the CPM had contested from 32 seats, while RSP fielded candidates in four seats. The Forward Bloc and the CPI from three seats each.
The final agreement within the Left Front is, however, yet to be drawn as the Left leaders will meet again on February 25.
The CPM’s state committee meeting will meet on February 28, which is expected to put a final seal on the seat sharing strategy.
Asked about the “glitch” in Raiganj, state Congress leaders admitted that they needed to sort it out with the CPM. The party also wants the Left to leave the Murshidabad seat to them.
“We had a preliminary round of talks with the CPM. But there is still a hurdle over two seats — Raiganj in North Dinajpur and Murshidabad in Murshidabad district. Malda, Murshidabad and North Dinjapur districts have been our strongholds for decades. Because of four-corner fights, the CPM had managed to win the two Lok Sabha seats last time,” said Congress Rajya Sabha member and chairman of the state coordination committee Pradip Bhattacharya.
The CPM leaders in Raiganj, however, sounded reluctant.
“It has been made clear by our state leaders whoever has won in the seat in 2014, will retain the seat. Accordingly, we will field our candidate in Raiganj seat. There will be one rule that would be followed by both parties across the state and the Congress in North Dinajpur cannot come up with fresh clauses and make a claim for the seat,” said Apurba Pal, district CPM secretary of North Dinajpur.
Dipa Das Munshi The Telegraph picture