No Left-Congress alliance, but seat-sharing arrangement: CPI

The CPI, a key constituent of the Left Front in West Bengal, today asserted that there was "no alliance" between the CPI(M)-led Front and Congress in the just-concluded Assembly Elections in the state and said it was just an arrangement on seat-sharing.
"There was no alliance. If there was anything such there must be a joint manifesto, a schedule of jointly-held programmes and a joint convenor... There was nothing as such. It was an arrangement for seat-sharing for the Assembly election," CPI state secretary Prabodh Panda said.
He said that the "understanding" between the two political rivals Left Front and Congress had raised high expectation, but failed to dethrone the Trinamool Congress.

The reason behind the failure of the Left-Congress "understanding", Panda said, was mainly because of the lack of "clarity" on which grounds the two parties wanted the "alliance".
"This understating was never clear... Several terms like seat-sharing, understanding, an alliance of the people were used to describe this understanding. People got confused and they started thinking it more as an understanding between the CPI-M and the Congress.. Never ever the historic significance of how the Left Front was established in the state was stated," Panda said.
And this kept the conflict between the Congress and the Left in around 19 seats, he added.

"Instead of strengthening this (Left-Cong alliance) has weakened the Left Front unity," the CPI leader said.

He also alleged that the BJP and Trinamool had a tacit understanding for the Assembly election and there were seats where both parties helped each other by voting.
"Around five per cent votes from the BJP were cast for the TMC. And the confusion on the clarity of the Left-Congress alliance also helped them (TMC) to get a few votes from these camps," Panda stated.
Asked if the CPI would be part of the Left-Congress "understanding" in the future, Panda said, "We never said that we will not go with them. The relation will continue and we will call them to come together to fight for the reestablishment of democracy and the rights of the people in the state.