Will CPM-Congress ‘Siliguri Model’ be Precursor to 2016 Tie-up?

A local poll in Siliguri has brought together the CPI(M) and the Congress. Will the two parties tie up for 2016 poll?

The CPI(M) on July 24 voted for the Congress to win a borough chairman seat in the Siliguri Municipal Corporation (SMC). Siliguri and the SMC might be flyspecks in the political map of the country, but the development is loaded with implications with a national touch.

Talks about a probable CPI(M)-Congress alliance; strategic or otherwise, in the 2016 West Bengal Assembly elections and beyond, are doing the rounds since CPI(M) central committee and state secretariat member, Gautam Deb dropped the alliance bomb in June. The aftershocks are refusing to die down.

The SMC development comes riding such a ripple. It also comes two days after Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee at a party rally in Kolkata, alleged the BJP, Left and the Congress were ganging up against the Trinamool with an eye on the 2016 state polls.

Not Impossible

Mamata might have overshot in alleging the Left and Congress were rubbing shoulders with the BJP to outvote her government, but with precedents available, it is not outlandish to imagine a Left-Congress poll pact to stymie the TMC at the hustings.

Led by Mamata Banerjee, the TMC has wrenched almost everything from the Left in the past four years. That is how all pervasive the Mamata magic has proved in West Bengal for good or worse. But the TMC chief has met her stumbling block in Siliguri in former Left Front government minister and CPI(M) leader, Asok Bhattacharya.

Bhattacharya rallied the BJP and Congress prior to the SMC elections in April to ensure “the TMC did not scare away voters on poll day to enjoy a milk run”. The move had its desired effect and the Left bagged 23 out of 47 SMC wards and went on to form the board with support from an Independent winner.

The Trinamool came second best with 17 wards and this despite Mamata’s express wish: “Siliguri amar chai” (I have to get Siliguri).

History of Alliance

With the SMC borough issue unfolding unthinkably, the Left has given to believe, the “strategic alliance” theory with the Congress could be more than mere gossip.

The Left Front and Congress have been bedfellows in the 2004 UPA government till the Left chose to withdraw support in 2008 over the India-United States Civil Nuclear Agreement issue. The big boy in the Left fold CPI(M) has had a change of guard of late and the secretary’s baton has passed on from Prakash Karat to Sitaram Yechury, who is arguably lenient towards the Congress.

The divorce had cost the Left dearly. Mamata stepped into the void, allied with the Congress and stomped to power in West Bengal. The TMC-Congress bonhomie was but short- lived and the two parted ways in September 2012. Since then the Congress in West Bengal has been blowing hot and cold against the TMC, but had no truck with the Left Front.

Defeating the TMC

Admitting recently it was not possible for the Left Front to defeat the TMC in the 2016 polls on its own steam, the controversial Deb’s plain speak is: “We would have to walk the extra mile if necessary to defeat the TMC.” He also dropped broad hints that the Left Front or, at least his party, was not averse to taking the Congress aboard to do so. A section of Congress leaders has endorsed the view.

Coming against this backdrop, the SMC development assumes significance and despite the adage ‘there is many a slip between the cup and the lip’, the CPI(M) leadership is upbeat that the ‘Siliguri Model’, as it is being bandied about, would show the way.

(The writer is a Siliguri-based freelance journalist)