The Congress on Thursday said that it will contest the upcoming West Bengal Assembly polls alone, instead of in alliance with the Left parties.

The party’s state in-charge Ghulam Ahmed Mir said that the Congress will contest all 294 seats independently.

“Electors in Bengal and workers in the state have the aspiration of fighting alone this time,” Mir said. “We entered into an alliance with the Left Front earlier but that did not boost the morale of the party workers at the ground level,”

Assembly elections in the state are expected to be held by April.

The decision was taken after discussions between the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee and the party’s top leadership at a meeting at the official residence of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge in Delhi, The Times of India reported.

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The decision marks a break from the Congress’s alliance with the Left during the 2016 and 2021 Assembly as well as the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

In the 2016 Assembly elections, the Congress emerged as the principal Opposition by contesting in alliance with the Left.

However, in 2021, while the Congress and the Left drew a blank, Indian Secular Front leader Nawsad Siddiqui won from Bhangar, the only seat secured by the alliance.

In 2023, the Congress won the Sagardighi Assembly bye-poll with support from the Left.

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Reacting to the Congress’ decision to fight the upcoming polls alone, Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Sujan Chakraborty said the Congress was entitled to take its own decision, but claimed people “expected all anti-BJP and anti-Trinamool forces to come together”, The Telegraph reported.

BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari dismissed the Congress as a marginal force in the state.

“It gets only Muslim votes in Murshidabad and Malda.... Our aim is to consolidate Hindu votes,” he told the newspaper.