The Left, Congress and Indian Secular Front (ISF) on Saturday completed their seat-sharing deal for seats in south Bengal for the upcoming West Bengal State Assembly polls, informed CPIM leader Mohammad Selim.
The Left parties are believed to have compromised 27 seats to the ISF. CPIM alone have spared 20. Congress has so far agreed to sacrifice eight seats to the the ISF, reported Zee 24 Ghanta.
However, Congress has given a stern ultimatum that their won’t be any compromise from its end for seats in Murshidabad and Malda region. They have also disagreed to leave seats in South 24 Parganas that they had won in 2016.
It was reported earlier Abbas Siddiqui’s ISF had demanded a minimum of 45 seats after starting negotiations from 72, asking Congress to compromise the most.
Congress expressed strong discontent on this, saying that it won’t be possible for them to compromise unless the Left leaves it with more seats. Till then, Abdul Mannan asserted, the CPIM-led Left Front would have to be more accommodating.
Meanwhile, the Left and Congress had declared last week that the seat-sharing deal between them was over. But they refrained from announcing the number of seats they would contesting from, keeping in mind the needs for ISF and other parties who are willing to be part of the alliance.
Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury had said that alongside the Furfura Sharif cleric’s ISF, several other parties will be part of the Left Front-Congress alliance.
“In the upcoming 2021 assembly elections, we will fight as an alliance of the Left Front, Congress and the Indian Secular Front,” said Left Front chairman Biman Bose who was also present at the joint press conference.
“The election will not be a two-cornered contest as projected by the Trinamool Congress and the BJP.
It would be a three-cornered contest as the Left and the Congress are very much in the fight,” he said.