Table of Contents
ELECTIONS
- The Congress and Left Front on Tuesday finalised an election alliance with Indian Secular Front (ISF), a party formed last month by Pirzada Abbas Siddiqui, an influential cleric of the shrine of Furfura Sharif in West Bengal’s Hooghly district.
- The deal is seen as a shot in the arm for the Congress-Left, which got only 12% of the vote and two seats in the Lok Sabha elections of 2019.
The Muslim vote
- In South Bengal especially, the TMC has been the major beneficiary of Muslim support since 2011, when it first came to power. Religious leaders and influential clerics appealed to Muslim voters to support the government of Mamata Banerjee, which returned the favour with a variety of sops for the community. Muslim-dominated Malda, Murshidabad, and North Dinajpur in North Bengal, however, remained largely a Congress stronghold.
Abbas and Owaisi
- After AIMIM’s showing in last year’s Bihar Assembly polls, in which it won five seats, Owaisi was seen as a “vote cutter” who benefitted the BJP.
- His decision to contest the Bengal elections triggered talk that it would make the election more challenging for the TMC and would help the BJP.
Abbas and Owaisi
- Realising that Bengal does not have enough Hindi-speaking Muslims, however, Owaisi decided to not contest on his own, and instead support Abbas Siddiqui.
- But the cleric decided to form his own party, and reached out to the Congress-Left, who demanded that he sever ties with Owaisi
Anti-incumbency
- While the BJP has been seen as the biggest beneficiary of the anti-incumbency against Mamata’s government, the strengthening of the third pole in the state’s politics indicates a potential for division of the anti-incumbency vote.
- The Congress-Left-ISF alliance has accused both the TMC and BJP of creating communal polarisation, and sought to present itself as a democratic and secular front committed to highlighting issues of concern to the common man.
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