CPI(M) leaders take stock of post-poll situation

Senior CPI(M) leaders on Friday took stock of the post-poll situation facing the party which was decimated in the recent Lok Sabha elections winning just two of the 42 seats from its erstwhile stronghold of West Bengal.

In the backdrop of demands for a change of leadership by certain sections in the state, the 15-member CPI(M) Politburo held a day-long session here, examining a report sent by its West Bengal unit on the severe drubbing at the hustings and the political-organisational reasons for such a result.

At the all-India level, the Left numbers in Lok Sabha have dwindled from 24 in the 15th Lok Sabha to 10 now, rendering them virtually politically irrelevant in the House.

Besides General Secretary Prakash Karat, the meeting was attended among others by Biman Basu and Surjakanta Mishra from West Bengal, Kerala leaders including Pinarayi Vijayan, Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, Sitaram Yechury, Brinda Karat and S Ramachandran Pillai.

The Politburo meeting would be followed by a two-day meet of the 89-member Central Committee from tomorrow, when CPI(M) leaders would review the emerging political scenario in the wake of the landslide BJP victory at the national level and the performance of Trinamool Congress in West Bengal.

The meeting would not only analyse the organisational weaknesses, but also debate the next steps on how to cope with the challenges and galvanise the party and the Left organisation which have been under tremendous stress due to continued attacks and violence allegedly by Trinamool Congress workers, party sources said.

In the recent past, several former leaders like veteran parliamentarian and former Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and some present middle-level leaders have sought a change in top leadership in order to save the party from being wiped out from state politics.

Left leaders have called for serious introspection within their own parties as well as within the Left on the role they would play in the coming days.

They have also pointed out that the BJP had taken full advantage of the anger of the people against Congress and its policies on one hand and the complete absence of a non- Congress, non-BJP alternative in the Lok Sabha polls on the other.

The Left parties had campaigned for a non-Congress, anti- BJP alliance, with their leaders saying that such a combination would emerge only after the polls. But that did not happen.