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Cong-Left Bengal deal on last legs?

KOLKATA: The seat-sharing agreement for Lok Sabha polls between Congress and Left in Bengal seems well and truly over, with talks of a "mutually agreeable" formula reaching a dead end and PCC leaders on Sunday deciding to fight it out alone.


The state Congress leaders have, however, left it to party president Rahul Gandhi to take a final call on the matter.

PCC chief Somen Mitra has already drawn up a list of candidates for all 42 seats which he will present to Rahul if he gives his nod in Delhi on Monday, sources said.

"No mutually agreeable formula could be reached despite our efforts," Mitra said. "In the Bengal PCC meeting, party leaders spoke in favour of not entering any alliance with Left." Immediately after the announcement, PCC issued a statement and said Left was deviating from their position of reaching a mutually agreeable formula.

Bengal Congress leaders indicated that the chain of developments started after the Left Front came out with the list of 25 candidates, along with the name of Rezaul Karim from Birbhum constituency. "It was conveyed to us that the candidate from Birbhum will contest on a Congress symbol, but Karim's name appeared in the list the Left announced on Friday," said a Congress leader. Karim, who was the chairman of the medical cell of Congress, was removed from the post on Saturday.

Party sources indicated that Rahul had agreed on a "13+4 formula" when the preliminary talks with Left began. Congress leaders were agreeable to a formula where they were allocated 13 seats, apart from two each from Malda and Murshidabad districts. But confusion brewed when Left said both Congress and Left leaders would contest from 17 seats.

"Another round of controversy came up when CPM leaders agreed that Congress could field candidates in Purulia and Basirhat, although they had already agreed to Forward Bloc's demand of candidates from those two constituencies. They are yet to clarify their position on the two constituencies," said a Congress leader.

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