Cementing the electoral understanding for the Bengal Assembly polls, the leaders of the Left parties and the Congress on Sunday discussed the seat-sharing arrangement which they said would be finalised by the end of this month.
“The Left-Congress secular democratic alliance is necessary for defeating communal forces and the fascist Trinamool Congress. We had a very fruitful discussion and we will meet again a few times and conclude the process by end of the month,” Pradesh Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said. He said both the parties listened to each other and nobody tried to impose their views on the other.
Chairman of the Left Front Biman Bose said the alliance is essential to give the people of the State an option against the binary created by the BJP and the TMC. Mr. Basu said the alliance was necessary to restore democracy and protect people from the communal divide.
CPI(M) State secretary Suriya Kanta Mishra and senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Pradip Bhattacharya also took part in the meeting. The two parties had contested the 2016 polls as part of an electoral understanding. The Left parties had contested in about 200 seats and won 32 while the Congress had contested in more than 90 winning 44 seats. The two had an electoral understanding in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls also when the Left parties drew a blank and the Congress won two seats.
According to sources, the Congress is demanding more than 100 seats pointing out that they have had a better success rate than the Left parties.
