A section of the CPI(M) will press for a party plenum at the national level for “course correction” in the current political line, further cornering CPI(M) General Secretay Prakash Karat after the embarrassing poll debacle. Plenum is a special mega meeting of the party in between two Party Congresses to approve a change in the prevailing political line.
According to party insiders, leaders from West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and even Tamil Nadu want to call a plenum to change the political line in the aftermath of the 2009 electoral debacle. The CPI(M)’s own strength fell from 44 MPs to just 16, while the Left was reduced to 24 MPs in 2009 from a record strength of 61 in 2004 elections.
This section of the party includes West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Kerala Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan, among others. It feels that the last Party Congress’ resolution was to try to form a “third alternative”, through mass movements and common ideological platform, but Karat and company “overstepped” this line and tried to form a “cut-and-paste” Third Front, which resulted in the debacle. At various state committee meetings, it has already been accepted that the people have rejected this hasty electoral arrangement, bringing loss to the Left parties as well.
Even as some heavyweight leaders of the politburo are in favour of convening a plenum, it will be a Herculean task as Karat still enjoys majority support in the politburo as well as in the Central Committee (CC). But, if the rebels in the party manage to endorse their line and force a plenum, it will be a major political victory of this lobby, led by some leaders of West Bengal.
The party held its last plenum in 2000 in Thiruvananthapuram to update its programme after the rise of the BJP on the national scene and massive change in the international socialist and communist world. Before that, it had held a plenum in 1978 at West Bengal’s Salkia to formulate strategy to expand in the Hindi belt of the country.
In today’s politburo meeting, however, the Lalgarh violence in West Bengal dominated the discussions in the first half of the meeting. The West Bengal state unit has given a report to the politburo regarding the issue, where the nexus between Naxals and Trinamool Congress has been identified as the prime reason for the attacks.
After the poll results, a section of the top CPI(M) leadership privately admits the line of withdrawing support over Nuclear Deal has failed miserably. “We could not stop the deal. We couldn’t topple the government. Manmohan Singh government survived and carried forward its agenda, but the Left was left behind,” said a CC member.
Many leaders have also slammed the Central leadership for withdrawing support from “the first secular coalition government that completed full five-year term”.