CPI(M) Bengal Leadership Faces A Big Dilemma Over Strategy In Panchayat Poll

Any activist and leader of West Bengal unit of CPI(M) will face strong disciplinary action in the event of any understanding with BJP in the panchayat elections The riot act being read out at the recently concluded state committee meeting of the CPI(M) is a clear pointer to the growing murmurs in support of red brigade activists joining forces with the followers of the saffron camp to take on Trinamool Congress in panchayat elections.

Every political party goes by an ideology of its own. Otherwise, it would be an unprincipled outfit. It does not suit a political organisation to be labelled sans principles or with loose ones. It is the last thing sought by a political party which takes part in elections seeking to give the people a better life.

The CPI(M) is no exception. Yet its policies in the past have not turned out to be inflexible. Rigidity of principles did not dictate CPI(M)’s decisions when it formed United Front government and first tasted power in 1967 when it tied up with Bangla Congress, an outfit which was as dissimilar to it as chalk is to cheese. Even though irreconcilable differences broke up the UF government, a beginning was made.

It was a pioneer of a coalition government formation. It was a precedent too of ideologically divergent outfits shedding inhibitions which saw Gandhian idealism and Marxist concern for people’s welfare sharing a common platform of pragmatism.

A decade later, processions sans party flags were taken out against Indira Gandhi-led Congress. Both the BJP and the Congress(O) supporters along with the CPI(M) took part The infamous Emergency was over and tom end it, CPI(M) activists and many erstwhile followers of the Congress joined forces to fling an authoritarian regime to the garbage heap of history. The CPI(M) was the beneficiary of the people’s anger against the emergency and the 1977 elections brought the CPI(M) led Left Front government to power in Bengal which lasted long 34 years till May 2011.

After the continuing surge of the Trinamool Congress winning three consecutive assembly elections and the CPI(M) denied of any single legislator in the new state assembly, the CPI(M) cadres in the districts have become desperate and most of them want to join with any anti-Trinamool component including the BJP. BJP is now the largest and the only opposition party in the assembly in the real sense. Congress just got its lone seat after Sagardighi by elections a few weeks ago.

Many CPI(M) cadres at the districts level are encouraged by the Sagardighi model under which the Congress candidate of the Congress-Left combine got elected defeating the Trinamool nominee by a huge margin with tacit support from a good number of BJP members and RSS cadres. This is not being denied by the BJP leaders also. Following Sagardighi victory, in many cooperative elections in Midnapore district, the Congress-Left nominees got elected, in some cases with BJP support.

While the base level CPI(M) cadres are enthused at the Sagardighi model , the CPI(M) state leadership is worried that the current stance of many of the district level cadres is against the party policy of having no truck with the BJP at any level. The warning given at the two day state committee meeting of the CPI(M) attended by the party general secretary Sitaram Yechury was meant to show the central leadership that the state leadership is serious in dealing with any move at the lower level to make common cause with the BJP to defeat the Trinamool Congress. The panchayat elections are due next month and so, this stern warning was needed, the state leadership felt.

Holding high a tee shirt which has “No vote to Mamata” written on it, leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari is the chief proponent of an informal unpublicized understanding with CPI(M).to defeat Trinamool in the panchayat elections. On the other hand, CPI(M) state secretary,. Md Salim has stated that the party will oppose both Trinamool and BJP. This may look as politically correct but the ground situation in West Bengal in such that just the front of the Left and the Congress can together barely get 25 per cent of the votes and this front alone can not be in a position to defeat the TMC in the crucial panchayat elections.

Adhikari’s rival in the party BJP national vice-president Dilip Ghosh is advocating a go it alone line in the rural polls. But then his opposition to line of action of the leader of the Opposition Adhikari is predictably taking into account their long standing feud between turncoats and original RSS. State president Sukanta Majumder who has risen from the RSS rank, is in favour of giving selective support to the Left-Congress candidates where the BJP is weak and the Left has a better chance.

The CPI(M) state leadership is thus in a big dilemmas as the panchayat elections are approaching. The party on its own is not in position to field candidates even in fifty per cent of the constituencies with any winning probability. The Congress with its present support base is of little use in ensuring win. The only option which can lead to the increase in CPI(M) seats is to work for an anti-TMC front with support of all anti-TMC forces including BJP. Much will depend on whether after this leadership warning, the CPI(M) workers in the districts abide by party discipline and keep no touch with BJP support base or they silently follow their own model of uniting maximum anti-TMC forces including the BJP support base, to take on the Trinamool candidates. (IPA Service)