Cracks in the Alliance
Cracks are already beginning to show in the Congress-Trinamool Congress (TMC) alliance in West Bengal. Earlier this month Mamata Banerjee was furious when Congress councillors of the freshly elected Siliguri Municipality took the help of their CPIM counterparts to keep the TMC from grabbing the Mayor’s seat. And this after contesting the elections together against the Left and wresting it from the Communist party after 28 years. After election results were declared and just before the Mayoral vote, the Congress reportedly circulated a written appeal asking for votes for its candidate Gangotri Dutta. The Left, ever eager to effect a split in the alliance, complied. So the 15 Congress votes and the 17 Left votes went to the Congress candidate leaving TMC’s Mayoral candidate Gautam Deb with only its own 14 votes and that of the one TMC-backed independent candidate’s votes.