The question of a possible CPI(M) role if the Opposition parties led by the Congress form an alliance or reach an understanding against the BJP remains unanswered as the Polit Bureau meeting of the party on Saturday and Sunday remained inconclusive on the issue.
The two opposing views in the party — one advocated by party general secretary Sitaram Yechury and the other by his predecessor, Prakash Karat — differ only in shades.
Both drafts agree that the primary objective is to oust the BJP from power. The difference is on how to bring it off. The drafts agree that there should be no electoral alliance with any party other than those of the Left. However, Mr. Yechury advocated that the doors should not be closed.
Sources said a draft, authored by Mr. Yechury and presented at the meeting, said the party should not enter into any alliance or be part of any front formed by bourgeois parties, including the Congress. Striking a note of caution, the draft said the party’s electoral tactics should advance the objective of defeating the RSS-BJP communal combination.
2015 line
The political and tactical line agreed in 2015 precludes any understanding or alliance with the Congress. Mr. Yechury wanted this sentence omitted. “His arguments are that let us not have any electoral alliance with the Congress or any bourgeois party. At the same time, there is no need to shut the doors. In the present political situation, there is no need to put it in writing that there can be no understanding with the Congress or any other party,” a senior leader said.
He said that in the R.K. Nagar Assembly byelection in Chennai, the CPI(M) is backing the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, a Congress ally. Sources said he argued at the meeting that it would be hypocritical to claim that the CPI(M) was not working with the Congress in such an alliance. If there could be an alliance with the DMK, he said, why not with the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar or any other regional party.
But Mr. Karat’s camp remains adamant that the CPI(M) could not be part of any alliance led by the Congress. In a recent interview to The Hindu , he clarified that for the CPI(M), opposing the Congress’s neoliberal economic policies was as important as fighting the BJP’s communal politics. The Karat camp and, most important, leaders from Kerala are cautious because the party had an understanding with the Congress in the 2016 West Bengal Assembly elections, despite the 2015 political line. The CPI(M) bagged a mere 28 seats and stood third after the Congress. The Kerala leaders are touchy about such an alliance because the Congress is their arch-rival back home.
Sources say Mr. Karat’s faction agreed to an understanding with regional parties, even if they were in an alliance with the Congress. This line was taken to justify the party’s backing for the DMK. Since the difference between the two lines is thin, senior leaders said efforts would be made to arrive at a single draft before the Central Committee meeting scheduled from January 19 to 21.
