Somnath Chatterjee suggests changing 'captain' of WB CPI(M)

Apparently suggesting change in CPI(M) leadership in West Bengal following the latest reverses in the municipal polls, former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee today suggested removal of the 'captain', but the Marxist party disagreed with it.

"At all levels it depends on a leader, captain and the general for success. For example, why is a coach sacked after a team suffers defeat? Perhaps the same is applicable," Chatterjee said when asked whether a change in the state CPI(M) leadership was necessary following the recent electoral debacles.     

The 84-year-old former CPI(M) veteran said that Left oriented politics in the interest of the working class and middle class was getting weakened.     

"Those parties which are connected with this politics, I request them to analyse this because the future is more important and not the power," Chatterjee, who was expelled from the party in 2008, said.     

CPI(M) Central Committee member Shyamal Chakraborty, however, disagreed with Chatterjee's comments and said, "We don't agree with his suggestions, as in sports a coach is hired by spending money. "In a Communist Party how can you hire leaders from the market? We don't agree with this comparison," he said.

Left front allies Forward Bloc and RSP, however, agreed with Chatterjee's view.

Top Forward Bloc leader Udayan Guha said though he considered Chatterjee's view as his personal, he agreed with the former CPI(M) veteran.     

"Whatever Somnathbabu has said, I agree with him in many respects. I also feel that there is a need for change in the Left leadership. If the old faces are not changed, it is difficult to achieve a turnaround in the Left's political fortunes," Guha said.

Without naming the Left Front major CPI(M), he said, "We are getting defeated due to the lack of an acceptable face before the people.     "There is a need to shed old faces without which an turnaround in Left's electoral fortunes will not be possible," Guha said.

"But while changing the leadership we must also keep in mind that the baton should go to competent people," he added.

Left Front constituent RSP also agreed with Chatterjee's suggestion.

"After so many debacles, we need to think about a change of leadership," RSP state secretary Kshiti Goswami said. A day earlier, the ruling Trinamool Congress swept the municipal polls winning eight of the 12 civic bodies.