Bengal: Left Front Announces LS Candidates, Seat-Sharing With Cong

The seat-sharing agreement, though, still seems dodgy.

The Left Front announced 25 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha Elections 2019, starting 11 April.

In a press statement accompanying the list of candidates, CPI(M) leader Biman Bose said:

“In the event that anti-TMC, anti-BJP votes don’t get split, a seat-sharing agreement was discussed. According to seat-sharing talks with the Congress earlier, it seems that they are keen on fielding candidates from Basirhat and Purulia. In a meeting of the Left Front on Friday, it has been decided that if a Forward Bloc candidate is fielded from Purulia and a CPI candidate is fielded from Basirhat and the Congress still wants to field candidates from these two seats, it is okay with us.”

The statement by Biman Bose also stated that the Left Front will announce candidates for some of the remaining 17 seats in the next couple of days. While the Congress will contest in some, the Left will contest in others. They may contest against each other in some constituencies and in some, independent candidates supported by both will be given tickets.

The Left Front’s statement shows that its alliance with the Congress in the eastern state has been in a fix as has been reported over the last few weeks.

The Left also said that while they have fielded candidates in the contentious seats of Raiganj and Murshidabad – the only two seats the Left won in the last Lok Sabha elections – the Congress may field candidates here too.

Interesting nominations include that of Fuad Halim, who will contesting against Mamata Banerjee’s nephew, Abhishek Banerjee, in the Diamond Harbour constituency; and that of Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, who will battle it out against actor Mimi Chakraborty, nominated by the Trinamool Congress.

The Left Front and the Congress had allied in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly Elections of 2016. In the elections, the Congress won 44 seats while the Left won 30 out of a total tally of 294.