The CPI(M) will try adopting a two-prong reformist strategy to tide over the recent Lok Sabha poll disaster. The national level strategy is to identify the Congress as a long-term and most viable secular partner while at the state level, in West Bengal, the blueprint is to overhaul portfolio and state-level leadership.
The decisions were taken at the CPI(M)’s two-day state committee meeting that ended here on Friday. They will be discussed in detail at the party’s politburo and central committee meeting on June 19, 20 and 21.
For the time being, however, West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and party state secretary Biman Bose do not figure in the list of proposed changes in the state.
Bose refused comment when asked about discussions on state leadership and portfolio changes. Party insiders, however, said, that a majority of the 53 state committee members favoured a change of face in non-performing and corruption-tainted departments of the state government. Departments where the call for change was loudest included power, transport, health, panchayat and backward class development.
CPI(M) leaders in West Bengal were, however, candid about identifying the Congress as the most viable secular partner at the national level.
A statement issued by the state committee, after the meeting, clearly said that the electorate did not identify the third front as the most viable secular and anti-imperialistic alternative. It, thus, voted the Congress.
“This had an impact in many states, including Bengal,” the statement said. The state committee also admitted, in the statement, that the CPI(M)’s own organisational weakness, lack of public relations and tainted image of some top-rung leaders influenced the electorate in West Bengal to vote against the CPI(M).
Bose said that a section of party activists and leaders were victims of non-communist attitude in their lifestyle and functioning.
