Allowing the Cong to go to IAEA was a blunder: CPI(M)

The central leadership of the CPI(M) today admitted to a series of mistakes, including the decision to allow the first UPA government to go to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2007.

On the third day of the extended central committee – the CPI(M)’s apex decision-making body – meeting party leaders said they had underestimated the strength of the Congress.

“Though the decision to withdraw support to the government was right, the way it was done did not go down well with the people,” a politburo member told Business Standard. “As a communist party we can never allow a government to pen a nuclear agreement with the US. But we should have been more cautious.”

The party also said that the Congress had “betrayed” the Left.

In the review document, the party admitted its several wrong assessments on issues like taking the initiative to form a Third Front with non-Congress and non-BJP forces. While it said the “timing” of withdrawal of support from the first successful secular coalition was wrong, trusting the Congress and allowing the UPA government to go the IAEA was a bigger blunder.

The document said the assessment that the Congress would not move ahead without the approval of the Left was wrong. More so, because the party could not topple the government by withdrawing support and stop the nuclear deal.

Loyalists of CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat had argued that the party could not withdraw support in November 2007 as the West Bengal unit was facing a crisis over the Nandigram killings and the subsequent panchayat poll debacle. However, The Karat lobby faced the embarrassing question: Why were these wrong assessments made in the first place?

Soft on Congress in Bengal
The West Bengal lobby managed to gain ground with the central leadership deciding to go soft on the state unit of the Congress party as part of its electoral tactics, but the party sharpened its attack on the UPA coalition at the Centre.

In Bengal, it will spare the Congress and focus on Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress. In Kerala, however, the CPI(M) will engage in a direct tussle with the Congress in the upcoming assembly elections.

Sitaram Yechury, politburo member of the party, said the biggest problem for the Left in West Bengal is the “index of opposition unity.”