Party cadres told to go to people and seek forgiveness for their acts committed in the past.
The CPI(M) in West Bengal has finally decided to do something which it had not done in the last three decades: seek people’s forgiveness.
Biman Bose, the state secretary of the ruling party, has repeatedly asked his party cadres to go to people and seek forgiveness for their acts committed in the past. Earlier, Bose had gone to public while addressing an election meeting in Purulia, saying that “some of our leaders have become arrogant”. Though he did not identify any of those “arrogant” leaders, he later pursued the issue in the CPI(M) state secretariat and Left Front meetings. He also admitted in public that he had advised the party cadres to tender an apology to the people for their past arrogance.
Following the CPI(M), the Forward Bloc (FB), another Left Front partner, has also taken the same approach. Yesterday, at a meeting of the party’s trade union wing TUCC, FB state secretary Ashok Ghosh urged the cadres not to show arrogance in their behaviour towards people and also to seek forgiveness for their past acts, if any.
In other words, this is an admission from the top leaders that three decades of uninterrupted power has created a class of arrogant leaders and cadres which in turn is pushing the people away from the Left.
Gurudas Dasgupta, the CPI MP from Bengal who is now busy fighting another electoral battle from Ghatal (after the delimitation process, the old Panskura constituency has been renamed as Ghatal), feels this is good tactical move. “It is a defensive game, where defence is the best offence,” he says.
But the Opposition detects a streak of nervousness in these campaign tactics. Congress leader Manas Bhuian is convinced that the “CPI(M) now is nervous. It could read the writing on the wall and that forced it to change the tactic. But power has gone to their head. They are giddy with success and for that they can’t change their attitude overnight”.
Sudip Banerjee, the TMC candidate from North Kolkata, feels: “The CPI(M) is now really on the defensive. But no matter how much it tries to extricate itself from this position, it won’t succeed. It is too little and too late.”
But a section of CPI(M) leaders, who are close to Biman Bose, believe that this move might put a stop to the erosion of support in the rural areas where in the recent past the Left suffered a series of electoral setbacks.
Last year, after having a major debacle in the panchayat elections, the party tried to find out the causes of the setback. The review brought out the seamy side of the party organisation at the grassroots level, where leaders have amassed huge power in their hands and turned into tyrants themselves. For the party, it was a revelation, but the people knew it already through their day to day experiences. Incidentally, along that line, a move to sideline some of those leaders in the election was also mooted by the leadership but finally discarded after considering it too hasty while finalising the candidates’ list.
According to insiders, by asking the party cadres to be more humble in their approach to the people, Biman Bose also wants to send a signal to those party satraps to fall in line.
It is to be watched if the measures taken at the higher level can discipline the party organisation, but truly it is a climb-down from the position they earlier used to enjoy in the state.
