The All India Congress Committee (AICC) had instructed the State Congress leadership in West Bengal to exercise restraint in making public comments on issues such as the chief ministerial candidate of the alliance between the Left Front and the Congress and on how many seats the Congress should get.
The development comes at a time when a section of state Congress leaders raised the demand to make Leader of Congress in the Lok Sabha and State Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury the chief ministerial candidate of the Left-Congress alliance. The demand did not go down well with the Left Front leadership.
Keeping in mind the bitter experience of the last Lok Sabha elections when the Left-Congress alliance did not materialise as the seat-sharing discussion between the two sides fell through the AICC took a "cautious approach", state Congress sources said.
"The AICC wants to keep the issue of the alliance’s chief ministerial candidate and that of seat-sharing under its direct supervision. The State Congress leadership has been instructed not to make public statements about it,” a senior state Congress leader said.
He added that the AICC had asked the State Congress leadership to send the rationale and relevant statistics in support of its demand in detail. "It is on the basis of these reports the seat-sharing discussions with the Left Front will be finalised," the state Congress leader said.
Earlier this month, AICC observer in West Bengal Jitin Prasada held a meeting with the State Congress leaders in Kolkata where according to sources the state leaders told him that Congress should contest in 140 seats in the Assembly elections next year. Congress insiders say that Prasada asked the state leaders to send statistics in support of their demand, and the report would be sent during early 2021.
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