After the Congress completely ruled out any tie-up for the upcoming West Bengal Assembly elections, the CPI(M)-led Left Front is on the verge of concluding its alliance talks with the Indian Secular Front (ISF) — a party founded by Furfura Sharif cleric Peerzada Abbas Siddiqui in Howrah district nearly five years ago.
However, the seat sharing has emerged as a bone of contention, with the Left Front’s old partner, the Forward Bloc, unwilling to give up its traditional seats to the ISF.
Sources said that on Friday, a veteran CPI(M) leader sat with lone ISF MLA Naushad Siddiqui and other leaders of the party to hammer out the alliance. CPI(M) state secretary Md Salim was also present in the meeting, sources said.
According to sources, the CPI(M) wants to contest in 180-200 seats of the total 294, while the Left’s old partners, the Forward Bloc, RSP, and CPI, want to field their candidates in 15 to 20 seats each. This leaves 30-35 seats for the ISF.
A senior Forward Bloc leader said the party leadership was firm on not conceding any seat to the ISF. “If the CPI(M) wants, it can give them (ISF) seats from its own share. If the CPI(M) unilaterally gives ISF our seats, we will leave the Left Front,” the Bloc leader told The Indian Express.
However, a senior ISF leader said, “We are hopeful about seat adjustment. We have described to the Left Front leadership why we are demanding around 45 seats. We are hopeful the Left Front leadership will understand our demand.”
A senior CPI(M) leader, on condition of anonymity, said, “We are ready to give 30 seats to the ISF. There are some seats traditionally fought by the Forward Bloc. But it is not ready to give up those seats to the ISF. That’s the problem. We are holding talks and expecting that everything will be resolved within a week.”
The Forward Bloc has its influence, though diminishing, in large parts of Howrah and North 24 Parganas districts, where in recent times the ISF has developed its organisational strength.
In the 2021 Assembly elections, the Left had allied with the Congress and ISF to take on the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC), but to no avail. Despite the Left parties contesting 180 of the state’s 294 Assembly seats and the Congress fielding candidates in 92 seats, the ISF was the only alliance member to win any seat, emerging victorious in just 1 of the 32 seats it contested.
Shortly after that election, the alliance broke down, and in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the ISF had contested independently. In these elections, the ISF had contested from 14 seats. In most of them, Forward Bloc was its rival from the Left Front.
This year, with the Assembly polls fast approaching, the Congress has already announced its intention to contest independently, a decision that has been welcomed by the Left Front, which remains committed to allying with the ISF.
“This time it is better that the Congress will not have an alliance with us. So, we can field our candidates in more seats, and also we can give more seats to the ISF,” the CPI(M) leader said.
Founded ahead of the 2021 Assembly elections, the ISF’s avowed objective is to “ensure social justice for Muslims and Dalits” in Bengal. Abbas Siddiqui’s brother Naushad, the Left-led alliance’s sole winning candidate in 2021, is the ISF’s chairperson.
Naushad was elected from the Muslim-dominated Bhangar constituency, which falls in the South 24 Parganas district, by defeating the TMC candidate by nearly 27,000 votes.
Since making its electoral debut in the 2021 polls, the ISF has expanded its footprint in some districts and begun to have a greater impact in state politics.
In the three-tier panchayat elections of 2023, the Left-Congress alliance had an understanding with the ISF but no formal alliance. Though the elections were swept by the ruling TMC, the ISF put up a strong fight in several Muslim-dominated pockets across the state, winning 336 seats – 325 seats in gram panchayats, 10 seats in panchayat samitis, and 1 zila parishad seat.