Kerala CPM again strikes Yechury

New Delhi: Kerala faction of the Communist Party of Marxism (CPM) has against struck the possibility of the party's General Secretary, Sitaram Yechury, once again becoming Rajya Sabha member from West Bengal. The Kerala faction cited three reasons for its denial: there is no need of providing another term for a person who already served two terms as Rajya Sabha member, there is no practice of General Secretary being parliament member and it is improper to become MP with the support of Congress party.

CPM has three members in Lok Sabha and five members in Rajya Sabha. Veteran leader TK Rangarajan will retire in April. Election will be held in West Bengal on 26th of this month for Rajya Sabha seats. There are five vacant seats. Four seats will go for Trinamool. CPM which has only 28 MLAs cannot elect one. Support of 49 MLAs are needed to win one seat. Congress too is ready to help.

In this scenario, CPM West Bengal faction sought opinion of the Central Committee which is now dominated by Kerala faction. The Central Committee held that present situation is not much different from 2017 when the party refused Congress support to elect Yechury to Rajya Sabha.

Parties without atleast five members in the parliament will be considered as independent. Such parties will be allotted limited time while taking part in discussions. CPM is to face such a situation after Rangarajan's retirement.

Final decision regarding Yechury's Rajya Sabha membership will be taken in the polit buro meeting to be held next day. However, an informal decision in the regard was formulated during a meeting of polit buro members convened here last day. Nine out of 17 members in the PB opposed Yechury's Rajya Sabha membership. Yechury was Rajya Sabha member from 2005 to 2017.

Trinamool has declared former members Arpita Ghosh, Dinesh Trivedi, Subhadra Baxi and Mausam Nur as their candidates. The remaining seat is the one to be vacant after Ritabatra Bannerjee, who was expelled from CPM, retire. Not naming a candidate to that seat by Trinamool also has caught attention. If Cogress and CPM join their hands, they can elect a common candidate. If Trinamool Congress and Congress nominate a common candidate, CPM will lose.