What top Congress leaders couldn’t achieve in four days of hectic consultations, party president Sonia Gandhi did in just an hour — sealing the seat-sharing deal with Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress for the coming Assembly elections in West Bengal.
On Monday, after a closed-door meeting — first with her political secretary Ahmed Patel and then with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee — Gandhi closed the deal, overlooking the demands of the state unit of the Congress.
Top party sources suggest the dismal performance of the Congress in last year’s civic elections in West Bengal and the Left parties’ withdrawal of support to the central government three years ago were two of the key factors that led Gandhi to opt for a tie-up with Banerjee, even at the cost of getting a humble share of seats.
Gandhi has been told the party can mop up around 40 seats with Trinamool support. It currently has 17 MLAs in the 294-member Assembly.
The assessment of the top Congress leaders was that the party had “experimented” by going alone in the civic polls. It boomeranged, as the party went down to just 10 seats in the Kolkata Corporation and managed to win only 11 municipalities. She was also reminded that most of the state leaders who were pitching for an “honourable” alliance now, had voiced the same demand at that time as well but had failed to deliver.
The top Congress leaders also told Gandhi that there was a wave in favour of Banerjee and “people of Bengal want the Left to go”. “If the Congress fails to address this sentiment in a positive way, we might face a severe electoral backlash,” said a leader who was consulted by Gandhi before taking the decision.
Her party managers also informed Gandhi they had tried to get three additional seats and exchange four seats. But Banerjee agreed to give just one additional seat and get one exchanged.
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The high command also assessed that if there was a split, the Left Front would get “political space”. This was unacceptable as the question is what would the Congress get from the Left in return? “If they had been our supporters in the Centre, the situation could have been different. But they supported the UPA only for four years, that too, creating constant hurdles in governance,” said a top Congress source.
The party is not paying much importance to the large number of disgruntled state Congress leaders. “It is quite natural that those who have not got tickets will be unhappy. But it is not necessary to accommodate everyone,” said a top leader.
While taking the decision, the high command was also fully aware that Banerjee wanted to corner the Congress and occupy the entire non-Left space in Bengal. But as the Congress is currently not in a position to claim the prime slot of the Opposition camp, the high command had to succumb to the pressure.