Rahul Gandhi chairs meet for Bengal poll preparations

KOLKATA: Rahul Gandhi took stock of poll preparations in Bengal with senior state Congress leaders in Delhi on Friday in the presence of the party’s Lok Sabha leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.
Chowdhury proposed seat adjustments with the Left in Bengal in order to make a dent in Narendra Modi’s and Mamata Banerjee’s support base, particularly after the BJP won 18 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, mostly from north Bengal.The BJP bagged seats in the erstwhile Congress bastions of Uttar Dinajpur and Malda while Trinamool made dents in Murshidabad. Chowdhury, however, retained Behrampore.
At the meeting, the Congress high command took special note of the depleting vote share of the party, which came down to 6.29% in 2019 against BJP’s 40% and Trinamool’s 43%. Chowdhury, who is also Pradesh Congress president, proposed a tie-up with arch-rival CPM and other Left parties, which had recorded a 7.59% vote share.
Even though seat adjustments were not smooth in preceding elections — 2016 assembly polls and 2019 Lok Sabha polls — Congress reaped benefits in terms of seats because it had a high concentration of voters in select constituencies of north Bengal.