| Subhas evens out Rahul's 'slip' | |
| Rajat Roy / Kolkata May 13, 2009, 0:37 IST | |
After Rahul Gandhi’s recent comment that jarred the Congress-TMC alliance in West Bengal, it’s now the turn of Subhas Chakraborty to rock the CPI(M) boat. A member of CPI(M) state secretariat and also a minister of the Left Front government, Subhas Chakraborty raised the question of ‘legitimacy’ of the party leaders who never contested in either state assembly or parliament election. According to him, the members of the CPI(M) politburo should take part in the election and test their acceptability among the people. Though Subhas spoke in general terms and did not take any name, his utterances left no one in doubt in the party circle that it was a veiled attack directed against Prakash Karat, the all powerful general secretary of CPI(M). Unlike other parties whose top leaders routinely contest in the election, most of the members of the CPI(M) politburo including their all powerful general secretary Prakash Karat never contested in parliamentary election.
Subhas made this comment in an interview to a vernacular news channel last night and stressed that a section of his party did share his opinion.
Stung by this ill-timed attack from within the party on the eve of the crucial last round of election in the state Biman Bose, the CPIM state secretary and politburo member, issued a lengthy rejoinder today to Subhas’ comments. Biman made it clear in his statement that the position taken by Subhas Chakraborty was not in tune with the party’s accepted line.
According to an insider of CPI(M) state committee, if there is a setback in the election then the party leadership would definitely face a lot of flak. But Subhas Chakravarty’s timing of the criticism of the leadership surprised them.
It indicates all is not well within the party. Subhas is known as close to Jyoti Basu within the party circle and on earlier occasion also voiced his disagreement with the party leadership when Somnath Chatterjee was expelled from the party. Incidentally, though he is contemporary to Biman Bose, Buddhadev Bhattacharya and Shyamal Chakrabarty, he was not accommodated even in the CPI(M) state secretariat in Bengal for a long time until last year when Jyoti Basu interceded on his behalf and lobbied for Subhas in public.
In his interview Subhas also questioned the sagacity of not joining the UPA government in 2004. He ridiculed the CPI(M) leadership’s initiative of forming the ‘Third Front’ and opined that it won’t be any meaningful venture. Also, he failed to appreciate the reason for inclusion of people like Naveen Patnaik in this ‘Third Front’. He wondered how the BJD of Naveen Patnaik could suddenly be acceptable as a secular party after having been an ally of the BJP for the last 11 years.
Biman Bose retorted back by saying that the central committee was the highest decision making body in the party.
He said that whatever Subhas had said on the issue of joining the UPA government was not in accordance with the party’s stated line. Even in last July when the party decided to withdraw its support from the government it was done after the central committee took a unanimous decision on that. He defended the decision of the party to make a serious effort to form the ‘Third Front’ by saying that it was again backed unanimously by the central committee.
Biman tried to explain that the party took initiative to form a non-BJP, non-Congress government in the Centre and with that goal in mind started approaching various secular democratic forces in the country. In persuasion of that goal, the party leaders came in touch with Naveen Patnaik of BJD. Biman tried to give an impression that after having a series of discussion with the Left leaders, Naveen decided to sever his party’s tie with the BJP.
|
Content Guide
