Kolkata, February 6: The Congress party has officially announced that it will contest all 294 assembly seats independently in the upcoming West Bengal assembly elections. The party stated that it will not enter into any seat-sharing agreements with the CPI(M)-led Left Front or the Trinamool Congress. This decision was made during a Congress Working Committee meeting held in New Delhi on Thursday.
Representatives from West Bengal included current state Congress president Suvankar Sarkar, former state Congress president and five-time former Lok Sabha member Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, and the only Congress Lok Sabha member from West Bengal, Isha Khan Chowdhury.
Following a meeting at the residence of Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge in the capital, Congress general secretary and West Bengal in-charge Ghulam Ahmad Mir announced that the AICC will contest the upcoming assembly elections without forming alliances with any other political parties in the state.
In addition to Kharge and Mir, other national Congress leaders present at the meeting included Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, and K.C. Venugopal.
Mir stated that past experiences with alliances or seat-sharing arrangements in West Bengal have significantly weakened the party’s grassroots workers. After discussions with state Congress leaders, the decision was made for the party to contest all 294 assembly seats independently. Preparations for the elections will commence accordingly.
Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury remarked that the decision to contest alone is a directive from the party’s high command. He emphasized that, as per the high command’s decision, they will fight the elections independently this time.
Political analysts believe that establishing a smooth seat-sharing arrangement for the 2026 West Bengal assembly elections has always seemed unlikely.
Since 2016, the two main architects of the seat-sharing arrangement between the Left Front and Congress were the late CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury and former West Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.
After Yechury’s passing, there has been no prominent national leader within the CPI(M) central leadership willing to advocate for an arrangement with Congress.
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MS/