New Delhi, October 23 — Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) prepares to contest West Bengal's forthcoming urban civic body elections on its own after a convincing win in this year's Assembly poll and subsequent bypolls, possible formulae evolve whether the state's historically rival political forces -- the Congress, Trinamool Congress, and constituents of the Left Front -- can come together to put up a unified challenge.
The civic body elections, including the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and Howrah Municipal Corporation, are likely to be held in the last week of November, with results expected around early December.
Since Mamata Banerjee broke out of the Congress party to establish Trinamool Congress, she has contested Lok Sabha polls as a constituent of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) where she has also been member of the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Cabinet.
Since then, she has led the Trinamool Congress out of NDA twice, first in March 2001, to rejoin, and move away again after the 2004 Lok Sabha election, after she was the lone winner for her party, losing seven other seats her party won earlier.
The Trinamool Congress later became part of the Congress-led UPA and Mamata Banerjee served again as the Union Railway Minister from 2009 to 2011 in the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh-led Cabinet. It was then that she finally breached West Bengal's Red bastion to become the West Bengal Chief Minister, leading a coalition government.
And some time after she decided to part ways with the Congress, the state leadership of the latter chose to go with the Left Front to which it had lost power in 1977.
But historic rivalry was buried to take on a common enemy.
Of late, West Bengal politics has witnessed the Trinamool Congress and BJP emerging as the principal competitors while the Congress and Left have struggled to recover lost ground.
Meanwhile, Mamata Banerjee has always chose to oppose the Communists – till she lost this year's election.
But as Suvendu Adhikari took oath as the Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee called on all "anti-BJP" parties, student organisations and civil groups to unite against the new government in West Bengal.
Mamata Banerjee's call included the Left parties this time in a desperate bid at political survival.
Now, as West Bengal moves toward a new cycle of civic elections, speculation has intensified over whether all the state's formerly rival parties will join hands to try and stop the BJP juggernaut. Such an arrangement, while strategically attractive on paper, faces formidable ideological, organisational, and electoral roadblocks that could make a durable alliance difficult to achieve.
For decades, bitter political battles, ideological clashes, and local rivalries shaped relations between these parties.
Even where national leaders advocate cooperation, district-level workers often remain deeply hostile to former adversaries.
Mamata-Trinamool Congress spokesperson and MLA, Kunal Ghosh, did not rule out such a possibility when asked by mediapersons in Kolkata.
Pointing at the national-level INDIA bloc, Ghosh agreed to a likely understanding among the state's opposition parties, but stressed that it has still not been discussed.
On paper, for Mamata Banerjee, cooperation with Congress and the Left could help consolidate anti-BJP votes in urban municipalities where fragmented Opposition voting has occasionally benefited the BJP.
A united INDIA bloc could also prevent multi-cornered contests that divide Opposition votes.
However, Trinamool factions may not join such an alliance, with the Democratic Trinamool Congress likely to go alone and the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI) – which some 20 rebel Trinamool MPs joined earlier – seeking a tie-up with the BJP.
The state BJP leadership has reportedly rejected such an alliance.
The Left Front, particularly the CPI-M, faces an additional dilemma.
Aligning too closely with the Trinamool Congress risks blurring the ideological distinction it has tried to preserve since losing power in 2011.
Left cadres frequently accused the Trinamool Congress of political violence and authoritarian tendencies, making a formal alliance difficult to justify before their supporters.
Many Left activists fear that cooperation with Mamata Banerjee's party could further accelerate the erosion of their independent political identity.
Seat-sharing presents another challenge. Municipal elections are intensely local affairs driven by ward-level calculations, personal networks, and neighbourhood leadership structures.
There is also the question of voter transferability. Even if party leaderships strike an agreement, there is no guarantee that supporters will follow.
When the Congress and Left chose to align, followers in many places did not transfer their vote as a bloc.
Many who saw the other as their principal rival abstained or even shifted elsewhere, to the extent of sometimes backing a Trinamool candidate.
Similarly, some anti-incumbency voters could gravitate toward the BJP if they perceive an Opposition alliance with Mamata Banerjee as opportunistic.
Observers see a tactical understanding in select municipalities more plausible than a statewide grand alliance.
While the fear of BJP expansion provides a powerful incentive for cooperation, decades of rivalry, competing organisational interests, and uncertainty over vote transfers remain substantial barriers.