Kolkata: While a seat-sharing agreement between Congress and CPI-M- led Left Front in West Bengal for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls is almost final, questions are arising whether the All India Secular Front (AISF) will be an alliance partner as in the 2021 Assembly polls or contest independently.
Neither the CPI-M nor the Congress has so far given any hint on this count.
However, the statement made by sole AISF lawmaker Naushad Siddique on Thursday, ridiculing the CPI-M and Congress leaders sharing the sharing the same platform with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at the opposition INDIA alliance meetings, indicate the growing distance of the AISF with both the Congress and the Left Front.
“Democracy in West Bengal is at stake in the hands of Trinamool Congress. So how could the democracy of the country be protected with the same Trinamool Congress as an alliance partner? We have seen what kind of attacks the ruling party launched against the CPI-M, the Congress, and the AISF in the recently concluded panchayat polls. In such a situation I fail to understand how the CPI-M and Congress leaders could be present at the same discussion table with Trinamool Congress. Now I am saying this and in future the same questions will come from CPI-M and Congress insiders,” Siddique told newspersons.
A CPI-M state committee leader said that once feelers came that Siddique himself would like to contest as an alliance partner from minority-dominated Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha constituency in South 24 Parganas district where from the sitting MP is Trinamool’s national General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee.
“However, later there were feelers that the AISF is taking preparations for contesting in some of the major minority-dominated Lok Sabha constituencies in West Bengal. So still now confusion is prevailing over the entire issue,” he said.
The Trinamool’s stand on the AISF is clear. According to the state’s ruling party, the AISF is acting as a clandestine partner of BJP whose only aim is division in the minority votes in West Bengal to give the saffron camp mileage.
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