A seat-sharing agreement for 193 of the total 294 seats in the upcoming West Bengal Assembly elections was finalized between Congress and the Left parties on Thursday. This comes after two rounds of subsequent meetings.

Left parties will contest 101 seats while the Congress will contest at 92 seats.

According to the state Congress chief Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, "In the second round of seat-sharing talks for the 116 seats of the upcoming West Bengal elections, it was decided that Congress will contest 48 seats while the Left will contest from 68 seats. The arrangement has been finalized for 193 seats so far".

After the first meeting which was held on Monday, between the Congress and the Left Front alliance, it was announced that they will keep the seats that they had won in the 2016 Assembly election while a decision on the remaining 217 seats will be concluded by January 31.

Earlier, In the 2016 West Bengal Assembly elections, out of the 294 seats, Congress had managed to secure 44 seats while the Left Front secured 33 seats. The ruling TMC secured 211 seats and BJP had bagged 3 seats.

The tenure of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government under the leadership of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is set to end on May 30 this year.

In 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Left and Congress had fought separately and while Congress won two seats, the Left settled with a blank.

Image courtesy: The Economic Times