Is the Congress content to let the Left win Bengal

The Congress is geared up to drive a hard bargain when it comes to negotiations with the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal for the upcoming assembly elections in the state, says a senior party leader adding that unlike in the past they would not compromise on either the quality of seats or the number. Even if this means breaking up the alliance in West Bengal and contesting the assembly polls alone, added the leader.

While the Congress is asking for one third of the seats, on the pattern of the Lok Sabha elections which comes to 98 seats,  a senior Trinamool leader known to have Mamta's ear said she would be willing to  give 50-60 seats to the Congress.

A survey commissioned by the Congress for the West Bengal assembly elections, reportedly, predicts that if the Congress and Trinamool contest together along with the Socialist Unity Centre of India, they would sweep the elections winning 52 per cent of the vote and in the process rout the Left Front from the state.

But if both contest separately and there is a triangular contest in the state, it would mean the sure shot return of Buddhadeb Bhattacharya as chief minister with the Left winning 44 per cent of the votes.

The survey says that the Congress could get between 14 to 16 per cent of the votes, and this could badly damage Mamta Banerjee's march to the chief ministerial seat if the seat-sharing talks fall through.

The survey was done in the beginning of February and lists a number of issues which could be relevant factors in the coming polls and which indicate that the Left Front government has taken corrective action and has recovered some ground.

After the loss in the Panchayat elections, the Left Front has worked with war-like fervour at the grass roots level, the criminal elements in the party have been sidelined and new faces are being projected.

Along with this Mamata Banerjee has been hit by the escalating price rise which is a huge factor in West Bengal, a state known to give the cheapest food to the people along with the scams and scandals which have plagued the United Progressive Alliance government at the centre.

The report also suggests that almost 50 assembly seats which have a predominant Bihari population could go against Mamata Banerjee. These include Siliguri, Jalpaiguri, Vidhan nagar, Islampur, Malda, Asansol, Durgapur, and Kolkata itself where the taxidrivers, the tongawallahs and vegetable vendors are  all predominantly Bihari.

Sources say that at the end of the day, Banerjee is banking on her "great rapport" with Sonia Gandhi to push the alliance through, since this is something which the Congress president had done in the past much to the detriment of the Congress party. Trinamool Congress sources say that over the last two Lok Sabha elections the Congress could not increase its tally from 6 lok sabha seats out of the 14 it was contesting whereas the Trinamool won 19 and 1 went to the SUCI.

They say the "Congress wasted the seats it had been given whereas Mamta could have won a few more seats if the Congress had taken less".

They say going by the arithmetic of the seats won, the congress should get 42 seats and this can be stretched to about 50 seats.  But the Congress says it will fight for its numbers and would also want some winning seats and not just those which are bound to be lost. But sources indicate that there could be more to this battle than meets the eye.

Some Congress analysts claim that the party would not be "unhappy" at the return of the Left Front in West Bengal, for a number of reasons, including the difficulty of having to deal with an upbeat Mamata Benerjee, if she wins. The Congress has now floated the argument that it may want to share power in both West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, if the alliance wins in both the states.

In an initial reaction, a leader close to Mamata Banrejee said they see no problem with the idea of power sharing in West Bengal. In a rally, a few days ago Bannerjee said that she wanted an alliance with the Congress in west Bengal and had also dropped the idea of setting up candidates against the Congress in Assam, as she had planned.

The battle for the ballot has begun between the Congress and its ally the Trinamool and much will depend on what the Congress party's real intentions are vis-a-vis the Left and how far the Congress is willing to go to keep them in power and keep the unpredictable 'Didi' away from Writer's Building.