CPI(M) rushes to control damage

Efforts were on to contain the damage caused by reports that West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had told the CPI(M) of his intention to step down in the wake of strong criticism from his colleagues for the party’s humiliating defeat in the Lok Sabha election in the state.

Though the party ruled out the possibility, Bhattacharjee declined to comment on this issue. His sudden meeting with Jyoti Basu this evening indicated that the party had initiated a last-ditch effort to restrain Bhattacharjee from taking such decision ‘individually’.

“This is bogus. Nothing has happened along these line. Whatever happens, our party does not behave like a bourgeois party. We don’t act individually. We own up responsibility collectively,” says Shyamal Chakrabarty, a member of the CPI(M) central committee.

Notwithstanding the denial from the party, Bhattacharjee’s unscheduled meeting with Basu at the latter’s residence signified that the CPI(M) politburo had requested Basu to persuade the chief minister to rethink his decision.

The politburo met today in Delhi to review the Left’s electoral performance. But Bhattacharjee, a senior member of the politburo, stayed away from the meeting that gave an indication of the course he was about to take.

After the party’s humiliating defeat in Bengal, a number of CPI(M) leaders started voicing their criticism in public. The biggest attack came from state Land Revenue Minister Abdur Rezzak Molla, who is also a member of the party’s state committee. Ever since the state government went for large-scale acquisition of farmland for industrialisation, Molla tried to oppose that. He now feels because of that “a major chunk of the Muslim community in the state seems to have voted against us this time”.

Rabin Deb, Sujon Chakrabarty, Tarit Toptar and some other leaders admit that the unrest in Nandigram and Singur did play a major role on this election. The state government’s handling of Nandigram and Singur issues damaged the party’s image among the people, which in turn motivated them to vote against the ruling Left.

All these criticisms were directed against Bhattacharjee because as a chief minister he led the government towards rapid industrialisation in the state that led to long-drawn confrontation with the peasantry in Nandigram, Singur and elsewhere.

Razzak Molla insists that the party leadership did not pay heed to the repeated warnings issued by him about the impending danger of this kind of unnecessary haste.

According to results of Assembly segment-wise break-up of the votes, the Left has lost its majority in around 190 of the total 294 Assembly seats.