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| Karat, Yechury join CPI (M) debate on halting Left slide |
| Rajat Roy / Kolkata Nov 30, 2009, 01:30 IST |
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In a near-desperate effort to find a way out from the serious situation they are facing in West Bengal, top leaders of the CPI(M) began a two-day brain-storming session here today. Prakash Karat, the party’s national chief, and two other members from their apex body, Sitaram Yechury and S R Pillai, have come here to take part and guide the 88-member state committee.
The immediate agenda of the meeting is how to turn the party organisation from its present directionless state to a well-focused, tightly knit one.
The state committee meeting has begun in the backdrop of the growing feeling in the party rank and file that after ruling the state for more than three decades, the CPI(M) is now almost certain to be pushed out of power in the coming legislative assembly election, in 2011. Though the chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, has recently claimed that all has not been lost as yet and the situation might change favourably in the next 16 months, there are hardly any takers for this in his own party.
Nirupam Sen, his industry minister and colleague in the party Politburo, has recently observed, “Never was it thought that we will continue to be in power permanently,” implicitly admitting the end is nearer now. A section of the party has already started thinking of the life beyond 2011, out of power.
The party’s Central Committee has already given a call to initiate a rectification programme for the party members. Biman Bose, the state party secretary and a member of the apex body, the Politburo, has already indicated the move to rectify the organisation will begin at the top.
Already, while reviewing the disastrous electoral performance of the Left in Bengal in May 2009, the party’s state committee had concluded that the party and the government had failed to push for the proper and speedy implementation of pro-poor programmes in the state, leading to major erosion in the Left vote bank in the rural areas. Also, it had observed that a number of party members have fallen victim to the “culture of liberalised economy” and deviated from the party line. In other words, that corruption has become a way of life in party circles, affecting its image among the poor.
There has been a growing demand to take disciplinary measures against a section of the leaders who have amassed immense power in their hands and often wield that for their sectarian interests. There is a growing demand from a section of the party to discipline leaders like Laxman Seth of East Midnapur, Anil Basu of Hooghly, Amitabha Nandy and Tarit Topdar of North 24 Parganas, all former MPs.
Earlier, they had tried in vain to block the nomination of some of these leaders for the general election. All these four are members of the state committee and they are now taking part in the meeting.
Party sources say Bhattacharjee himself is backing the group which wants to discipline these leaders. But, a serious purge in the party is not on the cards, as this will only enhance a quick but sure disintegration of the party edifices.
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