The draft resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), which negates the possibility of an electoral understanding with the Congress, did not come as a surprise, West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee (WBPCC) president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury told The Hindu on Monday.
“After the 2016 Assembly polls in the State, there have been a number of by-polls where the CPI(M) has unilaterally rejected an electoral understanding by announcing candidates without any consultation with us. This makes it evident that the CPI(M) did not want to have any truck with Congress in the State, post-2016,” Mr. Chowdhury said.
According to the State Congress president, a great deal has changed since the 2016 Assembly polls in West Bengal. “During the 2016 Assembly polls, there was huge enthusiasm among supporters of both the Congress and the Left parties at the ground level to take on the Trinamool Congress (TMC), and an electoral understanding was forged,” he said.
Mr. Chowdhury ruled out any formal alliance with the CPI(M) in the upcoming rural polls or Panchayat elections in the State.
Mr. Chowdhury, one of the architects of the “electoral understanding” with Left parties in the 2016 Assembly polls, said that the tipping point in the relationship came when CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury refused a re-nomination to the Rajya Sabha with the support of Congress MLAs from the State.
