It was a rare sight to see former and present card-holders of the CPI (M) protesting against the Party headquarters in Kolkata a few days ago. They called for the leadership’s accountability for the Party’s abject failure. Relatively young voices were raised. Seniors like Somnath Chatterjee, a former Lok Sabha Speaker, who was expelled from the Party in 2008, asked for the removal of Prakash Karat from the top position of the Party. The CPI (M) is almost synonymous with the Left Front. The Front has just nine MPs. In West Bengal, they won only two seats. In significant electoral areas, issues like marginalization, welfare and integrity were articulated more by the Aam Admi Party than by the Left.
The CPI (M) has to bridge over diverse aspirations in the Party. It has to undo its serious mistakes in the past like Singur and Nandigram. Its support from outside to the Congress from 2004 gave it some weightage in the Lok Sabha. It played a significant role in the implementation of the Minimum Economic Programme. Prakash Karat, however, took a doctrinaire, less pragmatic and less popular attitude by severing relations with the ruling Congress over the Indo-US Nuclear Deal. That coupled with the de-linking with the Centre weakened the Party’s position in West Bengal and Kerala. It now lacks a coherent role in the amorphous Third Front. The cadres are unhappy with the leadership and it is unlikely that the Party will have any positive role to play in Indian politics in the near future.
