New Delhi: CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury has blamed what he termed the ‘rigidity’ of the Rahul Gandhi-led Congress for the breakdown in the alliance talks between the two parties in West Bengal. He claimed his party would be at an advantage as in 1977 when Jayaprakash Narayan’s Janata Party had spurned its tie-up offer in the fight against Indira Gandhi.
“In Bengal, we said that there will be no mutual contest in the sitting seats. The Congress was unfortunately rigid…we have been sincere in our no-contest offer, it is the Congress which reneged. So the perception which has gone to the people of the state is that the only consistent force which can take on the TMC and the BJP in Bengal is the Left,” Yechury told this emergency said. “This will certainly help the CPI(M) in West Bengal.”
With the BJP emerging as the main contender to the ruling Trinamool Congress, the CPI(M), which won two of the state’s 42 parliamentary seats in 2014, faces an uphill task to retain its strength in a state it had ruled 35 years till 2011.
Asked what led to the failure of the Left and the Congress to stitch together an alliance in the state, Yechury referred to his party’s talks for a tie-up with the then Janata Party in 1977 and said the CPI(M) had offered it around 52 per cent seats while it wanted two-thirds.
“This is precisely what happened with the Janata Party in Bengal. They were not ready to budge from their demand. Then Jyoti Basu went to the people of Bengal and told them that we were giving the Janata Party a majority but they didn’t want it. We eventually emerged as the party which was consistently anti-Congress and then we continued to win there,” the CPI(M) chief said on the fight against the Indira Gandhi-led Congress government in the post-Emergency period.
The Left leader also said that while there was no scope of negotiations left in Bengal, the Congress going separately would help create a ‘momentum’ for the Left Front.
The failure in talks of the two parties has now paved the way for a four-cornered contest in Bengal among the Trinamool Congress, the BJP, the Left Front and the Congress.
“We declared the seats minus their sitting seats, we waited for more than 48 hours, we didn’t declare, but their candidates were declared including from two of our seats. So, it’s clear who broke the chain here,” pointed out Yechury.
In the 2014 parliamentary elections, the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress won 34 seats in Bengal, the Congress four and the Left and the BJP two each.
PTI