Bardhan blames CPI(M) for the Left parties' decline in polls

Top CPI leader AB Bardhan today virtually attacked the CPI(M) and put the blame on it for the Left parties' decline in the elections and said it was time for the Marxists to buck up and reverse the trend.

"The CPI(M) is the leading partner of the Left Front and in fact, the defeat (in the recent elections) was a grim reminder of what went wrong with the Left Front (in West Bengal)," he told Karan Thapar in an interview for his 'India Tonight' programme.

Bardhan said the CPI(M), as the biggest Left party, should take the major responsibility for the debacle and work to retrieve the lost ground.

The veteran leader said corruption, especially at the lower and middle levels of the party, and arrogance were among the major reasons for the poll debacle. But it was "not an endorsement of (Trinamool Congress leader) Mamata Banerjee's policies or programmes."

"If there is realisation that what is wrong needs to be corrected, if one realises that one's lifestyle, one's behaviour with the people, one's arrogance is to be given up, people will still be behind the Left because it has a programme and has done a lot of good things in West Bengal."

He also said that if the Left Front had "functioned as a front, if it had listened to the voice of the people, if the LF and some of its partners ... had not started thinking that they are for keeps and they will last forever just because they had been there for three decades, when you start thinking like that you become undemocratic."  "I do believe that at the top they (CPI-M leaders) are trying their best, they are worried. It has to penetrate down below," Bardhan however  maintained.

Asked whether the CPI(M) leadership got distanced from the people, he said "I think so. All of our people got distant from the people and I will blame them all."

Bardhan also blamed the CPI(M)'s partners — CPI, RSP and Forward Bloc — for not correcting the largest Left party, but said "I would not like to make it appear as if we were the ones who were trying to correct every time and they were the ones who were refusing to be corrected. That will be pitting them against the others."

On the demand for advancing the assembly polls slated for 2011, he said there was no need for it or to resign as "that would mean like running away from the battlefield and I do not want to resign now."