(This story originally appeared in on May 24, 2016)

KOLKATA: Pradesh Congress president and Behrampore MP Adhir Chowdhuri has asked all the recently elected 44 MLAs from his party to sign undertakings that will stop them from defecting to the ruling Trinamool Congress The Congress has emerged as the Opposition in the Bengal Assembly as the CPM got relegated to the third position. In the “Mamata tsunami” rerun, Congress has not only managed to add three more seats from 42 to 44, but has also increased its vote share from 9.6 % to 12 %. This way, Congress becomes the main Opposition in the Bengal Assembly after 15 years.But the biggest challenge for state Congress president Adhir Chowdhury will now be to retain all his MLAs. On Tuesday, the Behrampore MP and Congress chief convened a meeting at Bidhan Bhavan (the Congress headquarters) and started planning how to retain all 44 MLAs.Apprehending that they might cross over to the ruling Trinamool Congress, he asked them each to sign on affidavits (stamp paper worth Rs 100), promising not to indulge in any kind of anti-party activity and desist from defecting to the ruling Trinamool Congress.Chowdhury fears that the Congress MLAs, offered olive branches, might be keen to join the Trinamool Congress, like they did after the Trinamool and Congress split in 2012.The Congress, which has emerged as the gainer out of the jote, has been on a downslide since Emergency’s architect SS Ray lost in 1977. The oldest nationalist party never eyed the Treasury benches in Bengal ever since.Things turned from bad to worse after 2011 with the Trinamool repeatedly poaching on its leaders and workers. Congress legislators kept switching allegiance while others cross-voted in the Rajya Sabha polls To stop a repeat telecast, the Congress is now trying to hold back its MLAs and keep them politically engaged and make them look like the true-blue Opposition. Only on Monday, Chowdhuri met Bengal governor K N Tripathi to submit a memorandum against the post-poll violence that has been plaguing Bengal for the past few days.Chowdhuri is currently formulating a roadmap for anti-TMC agitation programmes throughout the state for next year’s panchayat polls.Known for his antipathy to Trinamool supremo Mamata Banerjee , the MP from Baharampur in Murshidabad, had called for the urgency of the Congress-Left alliance, citing the Bihar experience where an opposition unity created a big advantage.Even as the Left-Congress amalgam fell apart prematurely, Chowdhury included CPM leader Surjya Kanta Mishra in his delegation that met the Governor on Monday.Knowing the alliance could not inject a new dynamism in the country’s political system, he wants to keep the alliance alive and nurture it, if possible, given that the high command would wish to continue with the jote in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.Just before the polls, he had said, “We will have to keep this front alive and nurture it. Political equations in India are fast moving towards two camps – secular and communal. In that context, I feel the Congress and the communists will come closer in national politics.”