While PDP-BJP combine in Jammu and Kashmir is trying to settle down despite all the ideological differences another combine of similar character is emerging in the east out of compulsion to survive politically. Coming together of Congress and Left on the same platform in West Bengal looks both trying to revive their dipping fortunes. The way alliance of convenience is formed it appears anybody can be a partner as sinister victory is the target. It looks Jammu-Kashmir experiment of nationalist BJP going for a political wedding with State’s prominent party PDP in government forming to keep another combination of National Conference and Congress away from the seat of power has worked as a pointer. Ideologically both are poles apart but politically pursuing a common agenda which has nothing common but different identities with strong fundamental pockets. The combine made second coming which appears to go stronger in future. In West Bengal Congress-Left alliance is still in nascent stage but already have started singing victory songs and is trying to encash from the flyover accident. The present Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of Trinamool Congress is an ex-Congress cadre and she ousted Communists from their bastion with hands down victory with a promise of development and fighting corruption but her own party members are caught in corruption charges. In a state where voters alternate between the Left and the Congress, this is the turn of the Left to rule Kerala. Congress is totally discredited with the sullied Chief Minister, Oommen Chandy, battling two strong allegations of corruption. Every day a more and more startling corruption charge erupts in the state with the Left celebrating these scandals in the poll season. Also, the Left had done well in the recent local body polls, proving that it is ahead of the Congress and that the BJP is a marginal player. The Marxists are scared of the BJP becoming a credible alternative even to a small section of voters. In such a context, when the Left and the Congress join hands in West Bengal, the BJP becomes an option for the voters in Kerala. Will the new combine help Congress garner its fortunes in Communist bastion is yet to be seen?
