The CPI (M) in West Bengal can retreat into a gloom of self-analysis for 5yrs. After a great deal of vacillation it agreed to go into an alliance with the Congress which is called a “jot”. Even after the formation of the alliance, there was hair splitting over whether it was an alliance or just seat-sharing. In the circumstances, a common programme could not be chalked out nor was it necessary. If anything, the indecision of some leaders weakened the “jot”. It is true that the state unit took a decision which clashed with the line taken by party general secretary Sitaram Yechuri and his predecessor Prakash Karat who had long been indifferent to the state unit’s electoral prospects. But why they took this attitude has never been explained. The Alimuddin street mandarins will now be asked by the Central committee to go to the CPI (M)’s primary unit in West Bengal to tell members that it was wrong to form the alliance. Even the state party secretary, Suryakanta Mishra who supported the alliance fully now has to retract.
What Yechuri and others mean by the West Bengal unit’s violation of democratic centralism is not clear. Yechuri has been wallowing in self-contradiction. It is not clear why the Kerala unit of the party was allowed to be in an alliance with the state Congress and seize power. Does it indicate that the West Bengal CPI (M) should not have gone all out to fight the Trinamool Congress though the BJP has little strength in the state? One wonders what it will do now, trying to appease allies like the Forward Bloc and the RSP whose loyalty to the Front had always been suspect.