Raja’s remarks sad: Brinda; Yechuri warns against Congress phobia again

CPI-M leader Brinda Karat commented that CPI leader D. Raja’s call for a secular front, comprising the Congress and regional parties, to stall the expansion of the BJP, was unfortunate. Party General Secretary Sitaram Yechuri addressed the Kolkatta meet of Bengal CPM with allowance for Congress ties.

Mr. Raja had said the defeat of the Left Front in Tripura “warrants a serious introspection. All secular democratic forces should come together to counter the BJP-RSS combine.” But apparently, it was the inclusion of Congress by name that prompted Brinda's retort, for Raja had also said the Congress and regional parties could not be excluded from such a front.

“It is unfortunate that comrade Raja, a senior leader of the CPI, should publicly seek to draw lessons from the Tripura [election] results, which distort the reality, before waiting for a review by the Left Front. He has said the results underscore the need for a national alliance against the BJP, which should include the Congress,” Ms. Karat said.

Drawing such a conclusion was flawed. “Since it is Tripura he has cited, it is needed to recall that the Congress has been the main Opposition party in the State for the past four decades. It has headed the anti-Left and anti-communist forces,” she said.

In a statement on Saturday, the CPI-M Polit Bureau said the BJP managed to bring all anti-Left forces on one platform, appropriating the space of the erstwhile Opposition party, Congress.

“At present, the offices and homes of the CPI-M and its supporters are being attacked by goons, among whom are scores of those who were with the Congress yesterday. This nature of the Congress...should be kept in mind before reaching flawed conclusions,” she said.

Meanwhile, CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechuri, and one known for his disdain for being anti-Congress when it comes to the Left rallying against the BJP, has used his opportunity at the party's West Bengal state conference to promote his views once again. He told the party workers assembled that in light of the defeat in Tripura, his party should reconsider its stance towards the Congress.

Yechuri asked his comrades at the meet to lend their strength and influence the decision at the upcoming party Congress, where the matter will come up, to change the current party position not to have any electoral truck with the Congress. The suggestion to keep the door open for Congress was rejected by the party in January, but comrades still had every right to express their viewpoints, and they could propose amendments accordingly, Yechuri told the Kolkatta conference delegates, when the Bengal unit of CPM is known to favour such an electoral relationship with the Congress.

In every revolutionary advances, Bengal had played a major role. In this era when the Hindutva forces attack the CPM for its alternative stream of thought, Bengal had a special responsibility to resist such forces.

Yechuri had been advocating reaching electoral or non-electoral understanding with the Congress before the 2019 parliamentary elections. But those of the opposite view under Prakash Karat overwhelmed his views. In the wake of the Tripura election results, even those in the party hold that Yechuri has now got one more opportunity to advance his position.

However, those who oppose ties with Congress site the draft political resolution of the party which in its Clause 2.115(2) spells out that the main objective is to rally all secular and democratic forces to defeat the BJP, but this should be done without any alliance or understanding with the Congress.

Two recent interviews by the two leaders of the party, said to representing the two opposing stances, appeared recently in Madhyamam, Malayalam weekly. The first one by Sitaram Yechuri was marked for his refusal throughout to indulge in hypothetical statements, or to run down the accepted party line, and he fell short of strongly arguing for keeping Congress at a distance, even as he pravaricated on the type of CI-PM's possible alliances at the national level. The second, which read like a counter to Yechuri's, by former General Secretary Prakash Karat was distinctly, and vociferously, focusing on, and hitting out against, the Congress' neo-liberal economic policies.