The Left Front on Friday named five more candidates to contest the Lok Sabha polls, the announcement came a day after the ISF decided to go it alone and Bhangar MLA Nawsad Siddique reneged his pledge to take on Trinamul’s second-in-command Abhishek Banerjee in Diamond Harbour.
As Bose addressed reporters while releasing the list, it became clear that stitching up an alliance with parties outside the Left Front was far from a smooth affair.
“To break the Trinamul-BJP binary politics, we had wanted all forces opposed to these two parties to come together through seat understanding. We first approached the SUCI but they expressed their reluctance to share the electoral platform with the Left. The CPI(ML) said they would fight on a few seats and support the Left Front on others,” Bose said.
The CPM veteran, however, stopped short of saying that the ISF had been a millstone around the Left’s neck in these rounds of negotiations.
“We wanted to have an understanding with the ISF. We had multiple meetings but the ISF did not attend many of those…While discussions were on, they came out with a list yesterday (Thursday)…They wanted many seats but finally stuck to seven to eight seats,” Bose said while asking if the aspiration of the Bhangar MLA’s party matched its organizational capability.
While ISF announced its list of candidates on Thursday, Nawsad blamed the Left for the failure to stitch the understanding required to fight the Trinamul and the BJP.
Bose’s dig at the ISF’s organizational capability was in response to Nawsad blaming the Left for the “failed deal”.
Speaking to reporters, CPM state secretary Md. Salim hinted at a shift in ISF’s plan when he said: “We are attacking the BJP, they (ISF) are attacking the CPM. It is for you to understand.”
Releasing the list of candidates, Left Front chairperson Biman Bose said that the CPM had fielded actor Debdut Ghosh from Barrackpore, former Sandeshkhali MLA Nirapada Sardar from Basirhat and student leader Pratikur Rahaman from Diamond Harbour. Forward Bloc’s Prabir Ghosh will be the candidate from Barasat, while CPI’s Tapan Ganguly has been fielded from East Midnapore’s Ghatal.