Lok Sabha elections 2024: Left, Congress discuss preventing BJP and TMC in West Bengal

Congress and CPM officials said that the alliance problems in Kerala wouldn’t affect the current seat-sharing negotiations in West Bengal, a day after Left leaders missed the Opposition coalition INDIA bloc’s rally in Mumbai.

There was talk that the CPM and the CPI were cooling their ties with the Congress since CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury and leader D Raja were not there. The Congress fielding top guns Rahul Gandhi and KC Venugopal against their candidates in Wayanad and Alappuzha, respectively, infuriated the CPM and CPI. The opposition united in a tremendous display of power on Sunday during Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyaya Yatra’s last rally in Mumbai.

Prominent figures who attended the event included NC head Farooq Abdullah, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti, Mallikarjun Kharge, Priyanka Gandhi, NCP (SP) president Sharad Pawar, Shiv Sena (UBT) president Uddhav Thackeray, DMK leader MK Stalin, and others.

However, CPM sources assured this publication that the divisions between the CPI and Congress groups in Kerala would not be used as a political football during the West Bengal seat-sharing negotiations.

The Left Front released its slate of candidates for 16 of the 42 seats last week. The leader said that the 16 seats were chosen intentionally and that party leaders are now in negotiations.

In Tamil Nadu and Bihar, the CPM is associated with the Congress party. A CPM leader added, “Whenever Congress has the upper hand, they try to act like big brothers.”