West Bengal Assembly polls: Left-Congress-ISF talks make headway

The seat-sharing talks between the Congress and the Indian Secular Front (ISF) finally made some headway with the grand old party agreeing to leave seven seats to the political greenhorn. Congress sources said that that if the ISF agrees to the offer then the seat-sharing issue will be resolved.

The ISF has demanded two to three more seats from the Congress and the issue is yet to be resolved. The Left Front has given 30 seats to the ISF already, and the newly formed party seeks to contest from at least 40 seats in the Assembly polls.

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The development took place late on Tuesday night. "The ISF urged us to leave three more seats in the districts of South 24 Paraganas, Malda and Murshidabad," a Congress leader said.

ISF’s fresh demand resulted in further complications with Congress urging the Left Front to leave it a few more seats from which it will give to the ISF.

"The CPM is having none of it. They said that if it has to give additional seats to Congress so that it (Congress) can leave to the ISF, then it could give it to the ISF directly," the Congress leader said.

But the state Congress leadership is not keen on leaving additional seats to the ISF out of the 92 seats allotted to it. The Left Front has decided to contest in 101 seats and Congress in 92 seats. There are 294 Assembly seats in West Bengal. The CPM has agreed to leave 30 seats to the ISF.

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"It will be better if we have some more seats. As for leaving seats to the ISF or other parties, it is the CPM's concern," said state Congress President Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.

CPM Politburo member Md Salim said that the seat-sharing discussion was going on in a positive manner and issues will soon be resolved.