Kolkata: The alliance with Congress and other allied forces commonly known as Sanjukta Morcha is over, Sitaram Yechury, the general secretary of CPI(M), said on Friday.
"Janata Party was set up to defeat Indira Gandhi and the purpose of the party was over when she was defeated. Similarly, the alliance was meant for the 2021 Assembly election and not after that," he said during a press conference at Alimuddin Street, the state headquarters of the CPI(M).
Yechury's statement comes as a major blow to the state leadership who had always wanted an alliance with the Congress.
The CPI(M) had made an alliance with the Congress, its arch-rival before the 2016 Assembly elections with the result turning out to be disastrous. The CPI(M) got only 28 MLAs, the lowest
since 1972.
After the election results were announced, the Politburo had issued a statement that read: "The alliance was not in consonance with the decision of the Central Committee of the party." The Central Committee had always suggested that the party should maintain equidistance from Congress and BJP.
However, the state leaders particularly Mohammad Selim and Sujan Chakraborty had pleaded strongly for an alliance with the Congress and the Indian Secular Front (ISF) before the 2021 Assembly election. The CPI(M) and the Congress failed to win even a single seat and Naushad Siddiqui, the ISF candidate, was elected from the Bhangar seat in South 24-Parganas.
The distance between Congress and CPI(M) increased when the AICC refused to field any candidate against Mamata Banerjee in the Bhabanipur Assembly
by-election.
The CPI(M) and Congress have both nominated
candidates in Jangipur and Shamshergunj in Murshidabad.