Kolkata: The seat-sharing understanding between the Congress and the Left Front for the upcoming by-elections may have gone for a toss after the former announced a candidate for the much-debated Bagdah seat.
The tussle between Congress and Left-Front ally Forward Bloc has been afoot ever since the process of candidate declaration began.
The Left had spared the Raiganj seat for the Congress and announced candidates for the rest of the three seats. This seat was also under the radar of the Forward bloc. However, recently the Congress not just announced a candidate for the Raiganj seat but also for the Bagdah seat which has apparently riled Forward Bloc which had already fielded its candidate Gouraditya Biswas
from Bagda.
Presently, Forward Bloc’s state secretary Naren Chatterjee is learnt to have told the media that they have no relation with Congress which is an Opposition party to them such as the TMC or the BJP.
“In Bagdah, Congress will be our opposition. We will put up an equal fight. In Raiganj, we are not supporting the Congress. The rest can be decided by the Left Front,” he said.
Sources said the Congress announced its candidate from Bagdah since in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections too it had fielded a candidate from the Bonga Lok Sabha Constituency under which the Bagda assembly seat is located. The party has announced the name of Ashok Halder for the Bagdah seat.
Meanwhile, in Raiganj, Congress has fielded Mohit Sengupta who is the party’s North Dinajpur district president. The Left had spared this seat for Congress but sources say that the direction in which things are going the Left may soon also announce a candidate from Raiganj.
In the last meeting, CPI(M) decided it will fight the seats Maniktala and Ranaghat South while Forward Block will fight the Bagda seat.
In Maniktala seat, CPI(M) has fielded Rajib Majumder who is the Kolkata Zilla Committee member. In Ranaghat South, the candidate is a young face, Arindam Biswas. CPI(M) state secretary Md Salim had informed that the Raiganj seat was spared for Congress after a meeting with the latter.
Bagdah seat was given to Congress to fight both in 2016 and 2021 Assembly elections.
Four Assembly seats in Bengal are set to go for bypolls on July 10. The Left and the Congress, which fared poorly in the state in this Lok Sabha elections, is now facing a challenge to stick to its decision of a seat sharing arrangement for fielding candidates.