Left and Congress finalise seat sharing talks for by-elections
Kolkata: With four Assembly seats in Bengal set to go for bypolls on July 10, the Left and the Congress, which fared poorly in the state in this Lok Sabha elections, have once again decided to go for a seat sharing arrangement for fielding candidates.
The Election Commission (EC) has decided to conduct bypolls in four seats in Bengal which are Ranaghat South in Nadia, Bagda in North 24-Parganas, Maniktala in Kolkata and Raiganj in North Dinajpur. The last date for filing of nominations in these four seats is June 21 and the last date for nomination withdrawal is June 26.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC), on Friday, announced the name of its party candidates for the four seats. In such a circumstance, it was learnt that the Left and the Congress held a meeting on Friday to decide their list of candidates.
It was learnt that the Left is fielding candidates in all three seats except Raiganj. It was decided that CPI(M) will fight the seats Maniktala and Ranaghat South while Forward Block will fight the Bagda seat. In Maniktala seat, CPI(M) has fielded Rajib Majumder who is the Kolkata Zilla Committee member. In Ranaghat South, the candidate is a young face, Arindam Biswas. In Bagda seat, Forward Block has fielded Gouaditya Biswas.
CPI(M) state secretary Md Salim has informed that the Raiganj seat was spared for Congress after a meeting with the latter. Sources said that the reason for this is likely Congress’ victory in the Malda South Lok Sabha seat, the only seat bagged by the grand old party in Bengal in 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The Left and the Congress opted for a seat sharing once again even though it did not yield much result in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections.
The 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Bengal was anyway seen as a duel between the Trinamool Congress and the BJP but both the Left and the Congress had high hopes of bagging at least a few seats. However, once counting began the Left dropped out of the race much sooner than it expected even as some of the party members hoped to bag at least the Murshidabad and Dum Dum seats.
