In what was viewed as a political master stroke before the Assembly polls turned into a major disappointment for both Left Front and Congress after its electoral alliance in West Bengal received a drubbing at the hands of ruling Trinamul Congress. As soon as the West Bengal Assembly election results were declared with the Left-Congress alliance winning only 76 seats out of 294 constituencies, leaders of both camps started pointing fingers at each other. Congress won 44 seats while Left Front bagged 32 seats. The combined vote share of the alliance was more than 38 per cent compared to TMC’s 45 per cent.
The official reactions of the both the parties were same as they blamed the “adverse political atmosphere” and the “selective transfer of BJP votes in specific constituencies” for the electoral debacle.
However, unofficially it was clear that the Left-Congress alliance failed to win the trust of the people in Bengal and was not convincing enough to change their mind. “The alliance failed to reach out to the people the way it was desired,” said CPI(M) politburo member Mohammed Salim. Firstly, both Left and Congress leaders made no formal announcement about the alliance and secondly leaders like Left Front chairman Biman Bose refused to acknowledge it as an alliance and claimed it was an just an electoral understanding between both parties.
“If we really wanted to enter into an alliance with Congress then we should have announced it formally and the process should have started way before the polls. There was no clarity about the alliance and people remained confused. This led to the failure of the alliance,” said a senior CPI(M) leader.
According to many Left party workers, forging an alliance with the Congress was a mistake as the party which wanted to fight Trinamul Congress with corruption charges joined hands with a party which was ousted from power because of multiple corruption charges.
“Despite Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee sharing stage, people never really believed in the alliance. The leaders failed to read the pulse of the people,” a former state Congress president said.
Although the BJP’s vote share dropped to 10.2 per cent from 16.80 per cent achieved in 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the alliance has not benefited from it. Initially, the Left and Congress leaders thought that the BJP’s vote share would come to the alliance but in reality the Trinamul Congress benefitted from it in many areas.
Those who could not hide their disappointment made direct accusation that the Congress workers and supporters did not vote for the Left candidates. “The transfer of votes did not take place in our favour. Our votes went to the Congress candidates and their votes never came to our candidates. That’s why the alliance performed badly in South Bengal while it bagged most the seats in North Bengal,” a CPI(M) state secretariat member said.
Congress leader Om Prakash Mishra however attributed the poor performance of the alliance to two factors.
“On one hand, the Mamata Banerjee government’s development schemes were received very well by the people. As a result, people voted in favour of the ruling party. On the other, there was a selective transfer of BJP votes to TMC in some specific constituencies,” Mr Mishra observed.
