KOLKATA: The seat-sharing squabble that had threatened to derail the Congress-Indian Secular Front (ISF) tie-up in Bengal even before it could take off was resolved on Thursday after the Sanyukta Morcha, which includes the Left Front, arrived at a formula to keep all three alliance partners happy.
Congress will contest 92 seats out of 294 and the Left Front will field candidates in 165 constituencies, leaving 37 to Furfura Sharif cleric Abbas Siddiqui’s ISF. Left Front chairman Biman Bose finalised the deal after talking to his partners at the CPM’s state headquarters on Alimuddin Street.
Later, Bose spoke to Pradesh Congress president Adhir Chowdhury and they agreed to release on Friday the candidates’ list for 60 seats going to polls in the first two phases. Chowdhury left it to Congress veterans Pradip Bhattacharya and Abdul Mannan to make the joint declaration along with ISF’s Nausad Siddiqui.
There are, however, no consensus candidates yet for two to three seats in north Bengal. The Sanyukta Morcha leadership has decided to address these “teething problems” on Sunday.
The Left-Congress-ISF alliance has organised a joint rally in Kolkata on Saturday against spiralling fuel prices and to project itself as a vehicle for mass protest that goes beyond electoral adjustments. At the alliance’s first big rally at Brigade Parade Grounds, Abbas Siddiqui had struck a discordant note by extending support to Left Front candidates across the state, but stopping short of doing the same for Congress. He also stressed the need for “bhagidari (equitable sharing)” in electoral politics and said the ISF would extend support to others strictly on a quid pro quo basis.