KOLKATA: Two days after a BJP MP and MLA met CPM leader Ashok Bhattacharya at his residence in Siliguri, the state leadership of West Bengal’s erstwhile ruling party issued a directive to district-level office-bearers asking them to steer clear of any official or unofficial pact with the BJP in panchayat elections scheduled next year.
The directive is said to be a fallout of an apparent realisation in the Left party that it cannot afford to lose its supporters to the saffron camp anymore when the organisation has started gaining strength in all recent elections after the disastrous performance in the last year’s Assembly polls.
The CPM suffered a big dent in its vote bank in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and 2021 Assembly polls resulting in BJP making inroads in the state. The Marxists have since started regaining their electoral strength securing the second position in all the elections after the last year’s Assembly polls. The party is hopeful to perform better in the rural polls next year.
The ‘no pact’ directive reportedly follows the meeting, which both the BJP and the CPM claimed a courtesy visit, anticipating that the meeting might send out a wrong message of the saffron camp making electoral dividends at the cost of the Left’s attempt to regain strength in panchayat polls.
“The directions have been clearly spelled out. No form of alliance with the BJP will be permitted. We will lay down a series of guidelines. The area committees will have to make decisions conforming to those guidelines,” said CPI-M state secretary and party’s politburo member Mohammad Salim.
According to Selim, decisions related to panchayat polls such as selecting candidates or supporting some other party are normally taken by leaders and workers at the grassroots. The process of candidate selection will remain the same, the decisions will be screened by the district committees and the state committee will intervene, if necessary, he said.
The last rural polls had seen an unofficial understanding between the Left and the BJP at the grassroots level in several areas of the state. On Tuesday, BJP’s Darjeeling MP Raju Bista and Siliguri MLA Sankar Ghosh met Bhattacharya. The timing of the meeting and Bhattacharya’s stature sparked speculation on the future equation between the CPI-M and the BJP at a time when the saffron camp is desperate to consolidate its position in North Bengal ahead of the panchayat polls.
“The contest between the BJP and the TMC is much closer in north Bengal than in the rest of the state. Support of a leader like Bhattacharya can disrupt the ruling party’s plan in north Bengal in the panchayat elections. The visit to Bhattacharya by our elected representatives was not at all only a courtesy. It definitely has a political purpose to achieve,” said a BJP leader.
Bhattacharya, a former state minister, was elected five times from Siliguri, but he failed to secure victory in the 2021 Assembly polls as his former aide defected to the saffron camp and contested against him.
Given Bhattacharya’s political skills, the TMC is smelling conspiracy. “There is a conspiracy going on to destabilize the government, especially in north Bengal. BJP’s elected representatives from that region are demanding separate statehood and now they are trying to bring CPI-M leaders into their fold,” said TMC spokesperson Kunal Ghosh.
The BJP made major gains in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections by bagging seven seats out of eight in north Bengal. Though the performance was not as good as it was expected, it won 30 seats out of 54 in that region.
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