State minister takes a dig at poll-shy CPI(M) leadership

After Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi’s recent appreciation of the party’s political rivals that jarred the Congress-Trinamool Congress (TC) alliance in West Bengal, it’s now the turn of state Transport Minister Subhas Chakrabarty to rock the boat of the ruling CPI(M).

Chakrabarty, who is also a member of the CPI(M) state secretariat, raised the question of ‘legitimacy’ of the party leaders who never contested in either Assembly or Lok Sabha elections. According to him, the members of the CPI(M) politburo should take part in the election and test their acceptability among the people. Though Chakrabarty spoke in general terms and did not take any name, his utterances left no one in doubt that it was a veiled attack directed against Prakash Karat, the all-powerful general secretary of the CPI(M). Unlike other parties whose top leaders routinely contest the elections, most CPI(M) politburo members, including Karat, never contested in parliamentary elections.

 

Chakrabarty told this 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 elections in the state, Biman Bose, the CPI(M) state secretary and politburo member, issued a rejoinder today to Chakrabarty’s comments. Bose made it clear in his statement that the position taken by Chakravarty was not in tune with the party’s accepted line.

According to an insider of the CPI(M) state committee, if there is a setback in the elections then the party leadership would definitely face a lot of flak. But Chakravarty’s criticism of the party’s top leadership just ahead of the final round of polls surprised them. It indicates all is not well within the party.

Chakrabarty, known close to party patriarch Jyoti Basu, had on earlier occasions also voiced his disagreement with the party leadership when Somnath Chatterjee was expelled from the CPI(M). Though he is contemporary to Biman Bose, Buddhadev Bhattacharya and Shyamal Chakrabarty, Chakrabarty was not accommodated even in the CPI(M) state secretariat for a long time until last year when Jyoti Basu lobbied for him in public.