ISF's Political Puzzle: Will Left Front Alliance Survive in 2026?

According to the ISF legislator, he had sent a letter to the state CPI-M Secretary Biman Bose in August this year requesting the latter to start the negotiations for a seat-sharing arrangement for the upcoming Assembly polls.

He said that he did not receive any specific response to his proposal, although he was assured that the seat-sharing discussions will be initiated after Durga Puja, which had already concluded in the first week of October.

The ISF, Congress and the Left Front had a seat-sharing agreement during the 2021 state Assembly polls in which neither the Left Front nor the Congress could send a single representative to the Assembly, while Siddique emerged the lone legislator winning a seat from the alliance.

However, in 2024, although the Congress and Left Front had a seat-sharing arrangement in West Bengal, ISF contested independently.

For the upcoming Assembly polls, none of the three parties have come forward to initiate the seat arrangement talks, except a letter from ISF's Nawsad Siddique to Biman Bose.

The statements made by the leaders from both Congress and the CPI-M have created doubts on whether there will be a seat-sharing arrangement during the 2026 West Bengal Assembly polls.

The CPI-M politburo member and party's state secretary, Md Salim had earlier said that it is for the Congress leadership to decide whether they want a seat- sharing arrangement with the Left Front.

On the other hand, State Congress President Subhankar Sarkar said that although the final decision on the seat-sharing arrangement will be taken by the party high command in New Delhi, majority of the district level party leaders in the state want Congress to contest on its own without any seat-sharing arrangement this time.

- IANS