The CPI(M) extended central committee meeting starting from August 7 at Vijayawada is all set to witness the clash of two titans, certainly ideologically, over the party’s political final tactical line. The Bengal unit of the party led by Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has planned to seek a review of some “arbitrary decisions” like ill-timed withdrawal
of support to UPA-1. It will also question other decisions like cut-and-paste third front idea. The Bengal unit feels that these decisions cost the Left Front dear and led to its worst debacle in 2009 Lok Sabha polls.
On the other hand, using democratic centralism, the Karat camp will try to impose its diktat that political coordination with Congress for keeping BJP out was no longer relevant.
Significantly, this time the Bengal unit is more unified and determined to drive its point that the Congress is still the lesser enemy. Nirupam Sen, a Karat loyalist, has prepared the draft resolution.
Although the Bengal unit of the party is willy-nilly reconciled to the line of antipathy towards the Congress, given Mr Karat’s rigid stand, after the last politburo meet, it got a leeway when the apex body decided to take two separate political resolutions for Bengal and Kerala as both will face Assembly polls in 2011. Taking this as a sort of lenient stand of the central committee, the Bengal party has decided to go the whole hog to prove the point that the withdrawal of support from the UPA 1 was the genesis of the political downfall over the past two years.
“The decision based on a hypothesis to go for a third alternative without any credible and ideological bonding among the allies had eventually proved to be a misadventure for the party. It also decimated the credibility of the party,” the draft resolution of the Bengal party stated.
“The defeatist attitude of Karat as was reflected in his own statement made to Marxist theoretician Eric Hobsbawm that the CPI(M)in Bengal was beleaguered and besieged. This was interpreted as an admission of defeat even before the electoral race has begun in the state,” said a state secretariat member.
This defiance is likely to face a counter-attack from Mr Karat and his lobby on the ground that the political reality has changed and political co-ordination with Congress for keeping BJP out was no longer relevant. “Where is the question of UPA going and communal forces coming to power that we have to co-ordinate with Congress for keeping communal forces out,” he asked. Mr Karat’s question mark has indicated a harsh line for Bengal unit. The key task, Mr Karat said, was to fight the whole “gamut of neo-liberal” policies (adopted by the Congress) affecting the lives of people.