Politburo member Sitaram Yechury seems to have had his way. After differences overshadowed the four-day CPM central committee deliberations on the party’s decline and future strategy, the party leadership will now prepare a revised draft.
Without naming anyone, CPM general secretary Prakash Karat admitted that two politburo members had different opinions.
After what was seen as a Karat versus Yechury battle, the 88-member central committee has authorised the 15-member politburo to revise the draft on seven points concerning the party’s tactical line.
“There were two matters of concern which formed the crux of the discussion. We are not happy about the independent growth of the party and the second is that the formation of the Left Democratic Front. We have not made much progress,” Karat said at a press conference here on Wednesday.
On the party’s strategy to counter the BJP’s growth in Left strongholds, he admitted that the party’s erosion had ceded space to the saffron party and said the CPM’s priority was to increase its own strength. Six Left parties-- CPM, CPI, AIFB, RSP, CPI-ML and SUCI-- are meeting on November 6 to chalk out a joint campaign.
The draft approved by the politburo was challenged by Yechury and BV Raghavulu who had presented notes reflecting difference of opinion. Yechury is understood to have been critical of the implementation of the party’s strategy. Karat said a total of seven notes were discussed.
However, he denied reports on an internal strife in the party saying it was a practice in the party to let anyone place their opinion before the CC.
The party is discussing its tactical line since the 1988 Congress, prior to to 1991 when the neo-liberalisation process began. The revised draft will be placed before the CC again before it is taken up at the party Congress next year. A few months later, the CC will hold a plenum on organisation.
To a question on the possibility of CPM aligning with Congress to keep out BJP, he said “We cannot have any alliance with Congress anywhere in the country, including West Bengal.... But, in the fight against the BJP government or the danger of communalism led by the Hindutva forces, we will work with all secular forces. It is a question of mobilising the people. It has to be the broadest mobilisation of all secular, democratic forces to fight communalism.”
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