A high-pitched battle has started in the party congress of CPI(M) in Hyderabad over electoral alliance with the Congress Party as West Bengal, Tripura, Maharastra and Tamil Nadu join hands to place a note in favour of the alliance.
However, the party has conceded that such an opinion is part of the minority in the Marxist party. Despite that, what surprised many partymen was the inclusion of Tripura in the pro-Congress group, which till last year had opposed the idea of aligning with the Congress.
Has Manik Sarkar, known to be a Prakash Karat loyalist, now changed his position after the electoral defeat last month?
A senior party leader from Bengal attending the 22 nd Congress told THE WEEK, “Party is not ruling out change of leadership this time. And Sarkar could become a strong candidate for the top post, replacing Sitaram Yechury.”
Sources said Sarkar has not changed his position. But facing huge defeat and attacks from BJP from all over Tripura, Sarkar had to bow to demands of thousands of partymen in his state who, like Bengal members, are now pitching for an electoral understanding with the Congress.
The party has accepted that there is a division.
“While a draft was placed by Prakash Karat on behalf of the central committee, Sitaram Yechury placed the minority point of view of the central committee. The report on pro-Congress amendment was also placed,” said a central committee communique.
Now the question arises why Yechury, party’s general secretary, had to place the minority views when he was sure that it could be defeated by the stong opponents from Kerala, Delhi, Punjab and Bihar.
Commenting about the alliance with the Congress, Karat has been quoted as saying, “Many of us today have forgot that we are not all about winning election and be part of a government. We could not come out of the aura of power around us.”
However, a strong group from Maharastra has threatened to break the party if their proposal on having a political understanding with the Congress gets defeated.
Many insiders in the party believe that Yechury is all set to quit if he faces defeat in the party congress. In last year’s Plenum in Kolkata, he placed the similar proposal but that was also defeated because of resistance from Kerala, Tripura, Delhi and a section in Bengal.
This time Bengal has placed a moderate leader, Santanu Jha, to argue for the proposal of Yechury. The discussion has already begun on that.
In case of Yechury’s defeat and if Sarkar is not ready to take up the top job, because of his task of rebuilding the party in Tripura, then it would either be B.V. Raghavulu from Andhra Pradesh or M.A. Baby from Kerala, both inducted into politburo few years back, could be the choice for the general secretary post. Both of them are known to be Karat loyalist and proponents of a strong anti-Congress policy.
However, despite such quandary, the party congress would take up 283 amendments this time.