Dissident CPI-M leaders call party authoritarian, incompetent

Two prominent CPI(M) leaders, Abdul Rezzak Mollah and Lakshman Seth today trashed the party as "incompetent and authoritarian" and called for urgent reforms from the top.
Mollah, who had in the past repeatedly slammed the party leadership as incapable of leading the charge, said the top brass had become "polluted" and accused it of doing little for the uplift of the minorities in the state.
"The CPI(M) was in power for 34 years, but it failed to do anything for the uplift of minorities and dalits. They talk of class struggle, but how will you achieve it without removing the caste system?" said the veteran Left leader, who is a Muslim face in the party.

Mollah announced that he had formed a new organisation and vowed to give the state its first dalit chief minister and Muslim deputy chief minister.
He asserted that his new organisation would fight the 2016 Assembly polls in West Bengal and he would like to see a dalit at the helm and a Muslim as the deputy CM.
Mollah was also critical of the party's rectification drive alleging that there was a lack of democracy in the party.

"There is a need for rectification in the party from the politburo to the state committee level. Then only you can carry on that process to local level. But how can you purify the Ganga, if the Gomukh, from where the river starts becomes polluted," Mollah observed.

On the question whether he will quit CPI(M), he said, "Let them take action against me. Why shall I leave the party? It is an organisation as of now to battle for the oppressed."
On the other hand, Lakshman Seth -- a former MP and Haldia strongman, who had allgedly played a prominent role in the forcible land acquisition at Nandigram which eventually saw Trinamool Congress ride to power in West Bengal, dubbed the party leadership in Bengal as "authoritarian".