Didi gives comrades a splitting headache

THE CPM is desperately hoping for a division of Opposition votes to continue its supremacy in West Bengal and stay put at the Writer's Building after May 2011 Assembly elections. "Opposition unity poses a threat to Left forces in Bengal,'' CPM politburo member Sitarm Yechuri said here on Monday while admitting that the CPM had been losing ground in the State election after election.
The united Opposition have 51 per cent votes, whereas the Left's vote share remained at 49 per cent in Bengal. The comrades, who are seeking to win the Assembly polls for the eighth time in a row since 1977, however, appeared clueless on how to stem the Trinamool tide.
The party's extended Central Committee adopted a political resolution on Bengal and Kerala exuding confidence.
"The present challenge will also be met like the earlier ones have been,'' the resolution stated. Notwithstanding this boasting, it is clear that the party's ideology and its desire to stay in power are on a collision course. For now, the party's strategy appears to be to take Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool head-on and go soft on the Congress, never mind the Nuclear Liabilities Bill and the price rise issues.
The comrades upped the ante on the TMC alleging that Mamata's colleagues, including a few Union Ministers, were rubbing shoulders with the Maoists. "The Congress and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should answer how do they view Union Ministers rubbing shoulders with the Maoists,'' Sitaram Yechuri demanded.
The noises being made by the party leaders have given rise to speculation over whether the party might send feelers to the Congress for a tie-up. But sources said no discussion on a possible alliance with the Congress had taken place at the extended Central Committee meeting.
Asked whether the CPM's decision to withdraw support to the UPA-1 had dented the party's prospects in West Bengal, Yechuri said: "It is all past. Now, we are talking about the present''. However, it is not clear if the CPM central committee will continue to fight against the neo-liberal policies of the Congress at the Centre. From Yechuri's comments, it appears the party may tone down its rhetoric against the Congress. "The CPM never called the Congress a communal party," Yechuri claimed, contradicting party general secretary Prakash Karat's statement that the Congress-led alliance in Kerala was courting "communal forces."
The political resolution too carefully avoided tagging communal elements to the Congress. "The TMC had, on earlier occasions, openly aligned and shared power with the BJP at the Centre. The `change' offered by Mamata is anti-democratic and anti-development," it read.