General secretary Sitaram Yechury may be silenced if the camp owing allegiance to his predecessor, Prakash Karat, gains the upper hand.CPM leaders seem to have little else on their mind than the question of allying with the Congress. A look at the political-tactical report presented ahead of the party congress in Hyderabad would reveal the plight the party is in. The crucial document is supposed to be a reflection of the party’s functioning over three years but the 161-page report was a shoddy job at best. Half of it is dedicated to an analysis of associate organisations.
While the politburo and the central committee locked horns over the issue of allying with the Congress, the leaders forgot many other jobs. Hours were spent on a single controversial paragraph on a possible tactic to cooperate with the Congress to keep the BJP at bay.
The report on the party’s functioning over the last three years is disappointing. Far from resolving the disputes the party congress is muddying the picture. The CPM is at a historical juncture. General secretary Sitaram Yechury may be silenced if the camp owing allegiance to his predecessor, Prakash Karat, gains the upper hand. The Bengal unit, however, cannot be silenced.
On the other hand, a victory for Yechury and the Bengali comrades would be unthinkable for the Kerala unit.
Series of setbacks
The report has some telltale observations about the party’s performance in the assembly elections in the past three years. The party got only 0.7 percent vote in Tamil Nadu, where it has been consistently underperforming. In Assam, the party got 0.7 percent vote. All the left parties together could not collect even 1 percent of votes in Uttar Pradesh. In Uttarakhand, the CPM received only 3,870 votes though it contested in six seats. The party’s popular base is steadily declining, the report laments.
Most recently, the party lost Tripura after ruling the state for 25 years. The report sought to gloss over the debacle by just saying that the CPM’s loss and the BJP’s victory were major setbacks.
The membership figures are not hopeful either. The national membership has fallen from 10,76,123 last year to 10,12,315 thins year. The party’s strength is on the wane in all states except Kerala. In Delhi, the membership has fallen from the already feeble 2,187 to 2,023.
In Telangana, which hosts the party congress, about 1,000 members have left the party. Andhra and Tamil Nadu are no better. The party’s Bengal unit has lost about 50,000 members but the leadership explains it as the result of a tightening of membership norms.
The Goa unit has only 51 members. Sikkim has 60 comrades. Even in Kerala, the CPM membership would have slipped below the 10 lakh mark had the leadership not diluted the norms in the name of bringing more women and students to the party fold.
Bengal vs Kerala
The party is in dire straits. The report puts forward the self-criticism that the rift in the supreme decision-making body has spilled over to affect political policy formulation.
The majority in the politburo was not very excited when they elevated Yechury as the general secretary at Vishakhapatnam. Since then the general secretary was in an unenviable position where he lacked the support of the politburo.
The Congress and the CPI could do with Yechury’s counsel but his own party refuses to listen to him. The distrust formed over the question of cooperation with the Congress still remains. If Vishakhapatnam congress was watched for Yechury’s ascent to the top, the Hyderabad congress poses questions on his sustainability.
The central leadership was keen on getting the message across that it was a folly to join hands with the Congress in the last Bengal assembly election. The Bengal state conference, however, rejected the argument by a vote. They have to ensure means to compete with the BJP and the Trinamool Congress, especially when the local body elections are round the corner. That explains the desperate move by the Bengal unit by rallying behind Yechury.
The Kerala unit, however, is dead against any cooperation with the Congress, which is still its major opponent in Kerala. Ironically, the CPM in Kerala is in favour of allying with the Kerala Congress to sustain its victory lap in the state.
CPM leaders in Kerala warn that any cooperation with the Congress would deprive the party of its last base. Such an alliance, they argue, will only benefit the BJP.
When the two biggest units of the party are at loggerheads, the other state units are in a dilemma. Routine voting may not be able to solve this puzzle.
