Hours after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar indicated on Monday that the Communist Party of India would be part of the Janata Dal (United)-Rashtriya Janata Dal combine, the Left party said no decision had been taken as yet.
“Our primary objective is to defeat the BJP and also strengthen the Left,” said CPI national secretary D. Raja. As for Mr. Kumar’s claim that the CPI would go with the Janata Parivar, he said nothing had been finalised. “Nitish is probably going with an assumption based on the fact that the lone CPI legislator in the Bihar Assembly voted for him in the trust vote.”
CPI (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury too was non-committal on the JD (U)-RJD combine, stating that the party was committed to fighting the Bihar elections with the CPI and the CPI (Marxist-Leninist). Essentially the two Left parties seem to be waiting for their State units to explore all options and the Janata Parivar to get its act together before revealing their moves.
Briefing mediapersons about the Central Committee meeting of the party last weekend, Mr. Yechury said a year under the Modi dispensation was reviewed and the conclusion was that it was a case of “maximum propaganda, minimum performance.”
At the political level — particularly in its erstwhile bastion, West Bengal — the Central Committee drew some solace from the recent municipal elections. “The party has arrested the decline in its electoral support base for the first time since the 2009 parliamentary elections,” the Central Committee noted.
Mr. Yechury underlined the fact that West Bengal had seen an election — either local, Assembly or Parliament — every year since 2009. “Our first task was to arrest the erosion in the support base. That has begun,” he said, adding that the three-stage road map for revival is “arrest, retrieve and build.”
