Minhaj Merchant's column: The issue of infiltrators is the difference between victory and defeat.

Could the Congress's decision to break a decade-old alliance with the Left Front in the 2026 Bengal elections bring unintended consequences? "We have decided to go it alone," Congress general secretary and Bengal in-charge Ghulam Ahmad Mir said. Mir made the announcement after a meeting of senior Congress leaders in New Delhi. This means that the Congress will contest all the 294 seats in Bengal alone. With this, the contest has now become a quadrangular one. But this will only benefit the BJP, as the Congress can attract a share of the traditional Muslim votes of the Trinamool. In the 2021 Bengal election, the Trinamool got 48% of the votes and won 215 seats. But the BJP's vote share had also increased from 10.04% in 2016 to 38%. Its seats had increased from 3 to 77. However, the party's morale fell after the violence on BJP workers by Trinamool workers. The delay in the BJP's response to the Trinamool's aggression led many workers to switch to other parties. Can things change this time? The Trinamool still controls about 35% of the minority vote bank in the state. Still, there are signs of panic in the party. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is so worried that she advocated for her state on her own on the SIR issue in the Supreme Court last week. The names of Bangladeshi infiltrators can be removed from the electoral rolls of the state through the SIR. How will a four-way contest change the electoral math? Perhaps not enough to prevent Mamata from becoming the Chief Minister for the fourth consecutive time. In the past, she has faced political storms like the Sandeshkhali case, the rape and murder case related to RG Kar Hospital, the teacher recruitment scam and the corruption scandals related to chit funds. Over time, Mamata has tried to change her image from a political street fighter to a business-friendly leader. Kolkata is emerging as a tech hub, though it has a long way to go in competing with Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi NCR-Gurugram and Hyderabad. Trinamool insiders say that Mamata is also being seen as a possible leader of the opposition alliance in place of Rahul Gandhi. However, his presence in the Supreme Court as a citizen to defend Bengal's case against the Election Commission indicated that there could be some upheaval in the Bengal elections. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has continuously campaigned on the issue of infiltration in Bengal. This issue is very politically sensitive. As Modi said in his speech in the Rajya Sabha last week, even the most prosperous countries in the world are throwing out illegal infiltrators today. But in our country, pressure is being put on the courts to protect the infiltrators. How will the youth of the country forgive such people? Mamata, however, will not be too worried about the fact that the Congress has broken its electoral alliance with the Left Front. For them, both parties have now become politically irrelevant. Five years ago, the two together managed to get a little more than 10% of the vote. Their combined vote share may be even lower if they contest separately. The BJP is fast emerging in Bengal. But the electoral math does not indicate that the party can reach power by crossing the 148-seat mark in the 294-member assembly. To get a majority, the BJP will have to increase its 2021 vote share from 38% to around 45%. At the same time, it is also to be expected that the vote share of Trinamool will come down from 48 to 42%. With the Congress and the Left Front likely to be reduced to single digits, even a quadrennial contest does not seem to be enough to oust Mamata from power. Mamata is now 71 years old, but she is in no mood to take any risks on the issue of infiltration. Infiltrators and refugees from Bangladesh — where elections are due on February 12 — are a small but decisive part of their vote bank. This group can make the difference between winning and losing. The only hint of concern about this was reflected in Mamata's dramatic appearance in the Supreme Court. This was the first time in the history of India that a Chief Minister had personally pleaded a case in the Supreme Court. This is an indication of how much is at stake in Bengal's upcoming political battle. (These are the author's own views)