Kolkata, February 11 The Congress' decision to contest the West Bengal assembly elections independently has narrowed the opposition space, reinforced the state’s existing TMC-BJP dynamic, and shifted the focus from coalition arithmetic to vote consolidation in an increasingly two-cornered contest.
Senior leaders across party lines agreed that the breakdown of the Left-Congress understanding has effectively ended the possibility of a "third force" in Bengal politics.
"This election will now be primarily fought between the TMC and the BJP. It will be extremely difficult to break this binary without a Left-Congress alliance, but our leadership believes the party has nothing left to lose," a senior Congress leader said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
For the first time since 2006, the Congress will contest all 294 assembly seats on its own.
Party insiders said this reflects organizational fatigue from repeated alliances and a strategic realignment shaped by Bengal's altered political landscape and national considerations.
The decision, made during a recent meeting of the Congress' central leadership with senior West Bengal leaders, formally ends the party's electoral partnership with the Left, which spanned the 2016 and 2021 assembly polls and the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, without yielding any significant benefits for either side.
The fallout of the Left-Congress split is expected to intensify polarization, with the BJP emerging as the main beneficiary of consolidated votes against the incumbent, and the TMC trying to strengthen its position with the state's nearly 30 per cent minority electorate.
While Congress leaders like Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury favored continuing the Left alliance, most of the state unit functionaries advocated for a solo campaign, arguing that repeated alliances had weakened the party's organizational identity.
"The party has made sacrifices in every alliance since 2001, first with the TMC, then with the Left. Our workers believe we should now fight on our own to restore the party's lost ground," said Suvankar Sarkar, the state president of the Congress.
Party insiders also noted that the upcoming Kerala assembly elections were a significant factor in the decision, as the Congress-led UDF was engaged in a direct contest with the Left Democratic Front.
The party's electoral strategy reflects the dilemma it faces.
In 2011, riding on its alliance with the TMC, the party played a key role in ending the Left Front's 34-year rule, winning 42 seats as the Mamata Banerjee-led party secured 184 seats. The partnership soon deteriorated, and the Congress struggled afterward.
Its 2016 alliance with the Left yielded 44 seats for the Congress – more than the CPI(M)'s 26 – but masked a deeper decline.
The grand old party polled only 12.25 per cent of the vote as the TMC returned to power with 211 seats.
The alliance collapsed ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, forcing the Congress to contest alone. The results were sobering: two seats and a 5.67 per cent vote share, even as the BJP surged.
The BJP's rise in Bengal has been closely linked to the fragmentation and consolidation of anti-TMC votes. In 2014, the BJP polled 17 per cent and won two Lok Sabha seats.
By 2019, its vote share jumped to nearly 40 per cent, translating into 18 seats, while the TMC's seat count fell from 34 to 22 despite a higher vote share.
This development has been welcomed by the Bengal BJP camp.
"Voters disillusioned with the TMC no longer have two options. The BJP is the only credible alternative," said a senior BJP leader.
Within the TMC, the Congress-CPI(M) split is seen as a double-edged sword.
"The absence of another credible secular force will consolidate minority votes behind us. But the BJP will benefit from one-sided consolidation of anti-TMC votes," a TMC leader said.
The Mamata Banerjee-led party, which has been in power for 15 years, will face anti-incumbency in the upcoming polls.
"Had the Left-Congress alliance remained intact, anti-TMC votes would have split. Now the BJP stands to gain the maximum," said another senior TMC leader.
Minority groups say the shift is already visible. Mohammed Kamruzzaman of the All Bengal Minority Youth Federation said voters, who earlier backed the Congress-Left alliance, are now likely to move decisively towards the TMC to block the BJP.
Data from the 2021 assembly polls and the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, when Left-Congress fought as an alliance, show that three-cornered contests in Bengal tend to benefit the ruling party.
In 2021, the TMC secured nearly 48 per cent of the vote against the BJP's 38 per cent, while the Left and Congress drew a blank but dented BJP votes in several close contests.
The pattern largely repeated in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, with the TMC winning 29 seats and the BJP's tally dropping to 12, while the Congress won one seat. The Left had drawn a blank.
CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakraborty said, "Despite hurdles, we tried to present a secular alternative together. The Congress has chosen another route. The people will judge whether it was the right decision."
Political analyst Moidul Islam said the collapse of the Left-Congress alliance does not revive either party.
"It hardens Bengal's TMC-BJP binary. The BJP gains from anti-TMC vote consolidation, while the TMC consolidates minority votes. The Third Front remains an idea, not a force," he said.
As Bengal moves towards another assembly poll, the Congress' solo call signals no revival, but resignation to a political reality now defined by a straight TMC-BJP fight.