KOLKATA: The seat-sharing talks between the Left Front and the Congress in West Bengal failed and the Congress pulled out, accusing the Left of dictating terms and imposing conditions for alliance and thereby insulting the Grand Old Party.
State Congress president Somen Mitra declared that the party would field candidates from all the 42 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state.
After meeting Congress president Rahul Gandhi in Delhi on Monday, Mitra finalised the names of 11 candidates for the seats going to polls in the first three phases, sources revealed. However, a formal announcement is yet to be made.
The seats for which candidates have finalised are Darjeeling, Raiganj, Murshidabad, Behrampore, Jalpaiguri, Balurghat, Coochbehar, Alipurduar, Jangipur, Malda Uttar and Malda Dakshin.
“Despite the best of our efforts, no mutually agreeable formula could be reached. We don’t need an alliance by compromising our dignity. The Left had been dictating the terms of alliance and had been imposing its demands on us,” Mitra said.
However, the Left Front expressed hope that Congress would try to save the seat-sharing agreement to stop the BJP and the TMC.
“We have done nothing wrong and did not create any complications. The BJP and the TMC are having an undeclared seat -sharing agreement in not less than 8-10 seats. We still hope that Congress will come together with us to maximise our votes against the BJP and the TMC,” Left Front chairman Biman Bose said.
The Left Front on March 15 declared its candidates for 25 seats, leaving 17 seats to share between Congress and some of the Left allies.
This angered state Congress leaders who alleged that Left left only those seats to the Congress where the party’s organisational strength is weak. On the other hand, Left stated that it had given Congress more seats than it deserved.
Stalemate on four seats
Murshidabad, Raiganj, Purulia and Basirhat seats were the bone of conten-tion between Congress and Left Front. Both sides agreed that the failure of the seat-sharing talks will benefit BJP and TMC.