The Left’s campaign against Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy in the solar scam has virtually punctured moves of its forming an alliance with the Congress against the Trinamul Congress in the upcoming West Bengal Assembly polls.
While the Congress has become a common enemy of the Left and the BJP in Kerala, in West Bengal the Left would be compelled to go alone as the AICC cannot afford the logic of wanting to defeat the Mamata Banerjee-led party.
A section of Congress leaders are now concerned as to how the anti-Mamata leaders in the West Bengal Congress would convince party chief Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi to ally with the Left in the coming elections.
“In Kerala, our priority is to retain power but in West Bengal the preference is to increase numbers,” they said. The Left front in Kerala is right in attacking Mr Chandy because its silence could benefit the BJP in getting a space in the state where Christians and Muslims have been a decisive factor in elections. But the Congress has to be clear about its priority. “If the Left wants to win Kerala and West Bengal polls then why should the Congress lose Kerala,” they asked.
The Congress party has never been comfortable with the breakaway groups, be it the TMC in West Bengal, the NCP in Maharashtra, the PDP in Jammu and Kashmir, the YSR Congress in Andhra Pradesh or the Tamil Maanila Congress in Tamil Nadu.
The Congress would be a gainer as for as West Bengal is concerned. This is because the TMC and the Left could be its allies in the 2019 LS elections irrespective of who is coming to in the state. A section of the West Bengal Congress is also questioning the credibility of the TMC.
