CPI(M)’s West Bengal brigrade in the party politburo, supported by their Tripura and Andhra Pradesh counterparts and Sitram Yechuri, is now likely to go all out against the extreme Karatisation within the party.
The coming CPI(M) politburo meeting of the party in New Delhi on May 18, 2009, is all set to be a fiery one with possibilities that party general secretary Prakash Karat will be grilled by the anti-Karat brigrade for the party’s disastrous results nationally, especially in West Bengal.
CPI(M) insiders admitted that the withdrawal of support to the UPA government on the nuclear deal issue had boomeranged for the party, especially in West Bengal. “If we had not withdrawn support then the seat-sharing agreement between the Congress and Trinamool Congress would not have fructified and we would not have faced such a disaster in West Bengal,” a senior CPI(M) state committee leader told DNA.
Even party state secretary and Left Front chairman in West Bengal Biman Bose indirectly admitted that withdrawal of support had an adverse effect on the Left Front results in West Bengal. “Our preliminary analysis is that the promise of a stable government by the Congress had an impact on the Bengal polls as well,” Bose said.
Party sources said another point on which the Bengal-line is likely to grill Karat is on his unilateral decision to expel former Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee from the party.
While the party’s Bengal brigrade is confidant of support on this issue from Yechuri and Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar, the Andhra Pradesh representative in the politburo, BV Raghavulu, is also likely to join them. Raghavulu’s contention will be that at a time when the CPM was trying to expand their base in AP, the withdrawal of support to the UPA became counter productive.
