Barely after the electoral battle is over, Left leaders are gearing themselves up for the next round of contest. Apparently, the battle is for forming a political bloc with some of the non-Congress, non-BJP political forces with a distant goal of forming the government at the Centre. But deep within, there is a more serious battle raging within the Left parties. CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat held a meeting today with A B Bardhan and Debabrata Biswas, the two general secretaries of the CPI and Forward Bloc, respectively. This has sparked off speculation among a section of the Left leaders that Karat has been trying to rally opinion in his favour among the other Left parties. This is an attempt to prevent a possible move of the Left parties to support a Congress-led government at the Centre.
According to a senior Left leader in Delhi, the communist leaders are still not decided on the question of lending support to a Congress-led government, if required. While Karat is hell bent upon opposing any such move, leaders of the ruling CPI(M) in Bengal have a different view on the issue. Recently, Sitaram Yechury, a member of the CPI(M) politburo and also a member of the Rajya Sabha from West Bengal, came to Kolkata to campaign for his party’s candidates. According to party sources, Yechury had then discussed the issue with three of the politburo members from the state — Biman Bose, Buddhadev Bhattacharya and Nirupam Sen. Prompted by these discussions, Bose raised this issue with Karat over phone. According to sources close to the party’s state headquarters, Bose tried to impress upon Karat the merit of going a little soft on the Congress. Karat lent an ear to him but did not commit himself to any position.
However, Karat was not sitting idle, either. He initiated his moves by setting up an impromptu meeting with Bardhan and Biswas to discuss the situation. On May 17, the four Left parties are expected to decide on the broad outline of their future strategy.
Already the Left leaders have initiated dialogue with various regional parties and they will formally meet their leaders in Delhi on May 18 after the meeting of the CPI(M) politburo. The all-important CPI(M) Central Committee meeting will begin on May 19, and it may extend to the next day. The CPI has also convened its central executive meeting on May 19 and will take it to their highest decision making body national council on May 20-21.
A senior Left leader feels that though the Left leaders are still talking of forming a Third Front government at the Centre, that remains a distant dream. So, eventually, in the post-poll scenario the question might boil down to lending Left support to a Congress-led government. In that situation, a section of the senior Left leaders feel Karat will be able to carry a majority of the Central Committee members to his view. According to him, the Bengal comrades’ ‘soft’ attitude towards the Congress stems from a narrow political view: to create confusion among the Opposition and force the Trinamool Congress, their main political adversary in the state, to severe their relationship with the Congress. But, he feels that this won’t generate sufficient support among the rest of the members in the Central Committee. The members from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Tripura, an overwhelming majority of the 82-member Committee are likely to side with Karat.
As it is the untimely attacks initiated by Subhas Chakrabarty against Karat has only weakened the case of the Bengal comrades, though they did not share his view. Karat’s game plan is to create a scenario where a number of regional political outfits will come together to form a political block with the Left and together move in their effort to stall any initiative to help Congress in its bid to the power. For that, Karat and his group has to win the Left parties first to their side. (EOM)