CPI(M) facing shortage of funds
From Ashis Biswas
These are hard times for the mighty CPI(M) in West Bengal.
Perhaps the most organised and cohesive among political parties in the country, the CPI(M) is currently facing an acute shortage of funds. Observers are surprised. It has been ruling West Bengal uninterrupted for 34 years, CPI(M) Ministers have held the strongest of portfolios all these years, in view of its undoubted dominance over all other parliamentary left parties. In terms of assets, it is the fourth largest in India, although it formed governments in only three states in India, and consistently won only in West Bengal.
There are two views about its present post 2011 Assembly election financial crisis. Party dissidents and observers think the distress is exaggerated by party leaders.
“Ruling a medium income state like West Bengal for 34 years is a major political achievement. Such sustained success also attracts automatic donations from investors, donors with an interest and umpteen other official and non official sources. The lavish life styles of even lower level leaders had assumed scandalous proportions in several districts. It is hard to believe that barely months after their election defeat, these leaders have become penniless!”
State Committee leaders however, stress that several expansion programmes, seeking to enhance the party’s reach among the masses, have been postponed for lack of finance. “The proposal to start a new TV channel of our own is not feasible now,” says a State Committee member. He also confirmed reports of an imminent cut in the party allowance for whole- timers in the districts. Funds to keep the state party and its mass organisations running were recently received from Kerala, Tripura, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and other units. In two instalments Kerala sent Rs 25 lakhs and Rs 4 crore, respectively and promised more for the future.
“It is no more than our due,” said a state CPI(M) leader. “Earlier, the bulk of our expenditure in all States was provided by West Bengal .Now times have changed.”
However, leaders are silent when examples are cited of the opulent living standards of lower level functionaries. To give three examples, a Hooghly-based local committee leader has a large house with CCTV and other facilities, cars and other luxuries of life today. Even a decade back, he found it difficult to meet his family expenses. Another member, a leader of the D grade employees” union at a north 24 Parganas college, has a fleet of minibuses and a three story building and arranged for expensive tutoring facilities for his daughter. A North 24 Parganas-based former MP also had CCTV facilities installed in his very large house at Salt Lake, while his daughter, instead of joining the party, has set up a business. Back in 2004 itself, this former MP had declared assets amounting to nearly Rs 2 crore, which caused comments within the party!
CPI(M) leaders frequently talk of a “rectification” campaign, but so far, no action of any sort has been taken against these men. The number of such “success stories” among party members all over the state runs into scores.
CPI(M) dissidents who do not support the way the party has been allowed to function by the top leadership, maintain that the cleaning up should have begun right from the top. ”The attitude of the present leadership towards corruption became clear from the way they handled the controversy relating to assets amassed by the husband and other relatives of the former Rajya Sabha MP, Mrs Sarla Maheshweri . Leaders defended the Maheshweri family saying that there was no proof of any corruption, only certain allegations had been made!”
Inner party critics of state Secretary Biman Bose and other leaders, want that these people who had “made good” during the CPI(M)”s long heyday, should loosen their purse strings and help the party financially. “It is the least they can do for the party that has made them what they are today,” they say.
How real is the financial crisis the CPI(M) is facing ? It is difficult to arrive at accurate figures, but there are some clear indications. Trade Union spokesmen point to the daily levy collected from thousands of street hawkers, auto drivers, taxi drivers, bus operators and workers. The collection was several lakhs of rupees daily, the bulk of which went to the left parties or their mass organisations. Nowadays, it is the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and its TU organisations which are attracting such funds. The loss is massive and there is little the left parties can do about this, unless they win the next elections!
Legal expenses have also increased massively for the CPI(M).There is the cost of running the multiple cases filed against former Minister Sushanta Ghosh. And it is not just Ghosh alone. Scores of party members and supporters have been rounded up from different districts of late, in connection with old cases pending for long.
The CPI(M) claims that mostly these cases were started to harass the left workers and the charges against those arrested would not stand in a court of law. The state government however, is serious about pursuing these cases to the end. Chief Minister Ms Mamata Banerjee has declared, “The law will take its own course. After all, apart from nearly 1500 illegal firearms, at least 25 skeletons have been recovered or dug out after the elections from many districts. I need not point out who were involved in such activities,” she said, without referring to the CPI(M). Also, except for some lukewarm support from the CPI, the CPI(M) has not won much sympathy from allies like the RSP or Forward Bloc, not to mention the common people .
According to a left-supporting lawyer who helps the CPI(M) in their campaign to support Ghosh and others, “ The problem is that the police are arresting left cadres or supporters by the score in connection with cases relating to the unearthing of skeletons. This makes it difficult for us. Sixty/seventy people are being arrested from remote interior, whenever skeleton, or even a few bones, are being recovered. Some motivated people are tipping off the police. Mostly these are very poor people, whose families suffer from acute financial crisis. Naturally the party has to help them as far as possible. This means a big drain on our resources in already strained times.”
With the TMC leadership determined to maintain the pressure on the CPI(M) and bent on exposing its alleged misdeeds, there seems to be little respite in the offing for the party in the state. (IPA Service)