There seems to be agreement within the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] over the kind of understandings it should have with other political formations going by the tenor of discussions on the second day of its 23rd party congress under way here.
Almost all of the two dozen delegates who spoke about the draft political resolution on Thursday favoured the line that recommends a coming together of the Left and democratic forces at the State-level, depending on the political character of each State. This position discards any possibility of a pan-national alliance.
This was made amply clear by the party general secretary Sitaram Yechury as well when he told the media that never in India’s electoral history had there been a pre-poll alliance that formed a coalition government.
“In 2024, there will not be any all-India front before the election. In the Indian condition, each State has a dominant political force and, therefore, the effort would be to maximise pooling of anti-BJP votes in every State,” Mr. Yechury told the media on Thursday. “We will cross the bridge when we come to it” was his repartee to a query on the next General Elections.
Ties with Cong.
The Congress refusal to allow its leaders to participate in seminars organised on the sidelines of the party congress put paid to the question whether the CPI(M) would want to have the Congress in the alliance of secular parties.
“We invited Shashi Tharoor and Mani Shankar Aiyar to take part in seminars, but they were denied permission. If the party isn’t allowing its leaders to take part in a seminar on secularism, what does it convey,” Mr. Yechury asked.
Opening the discussion on Thursday, P. Rajeeve from Kerala lambasted the Congress for its soft-Hindutva character. He spoke at length about the manic opposition by the Congress to the schemes and programmes of the Kerala government led by his party.
Only Srijan Bhattacharya from West Bengal was enamoured of the continued relevance of the Congress in his State and at the national level.
Protest against price hike
The party congress on Thursday adopted a resolution calling for widespread protests against the callous daily fuel price rise. The resolution demanded the immediate withdrawal of additional taxes imposed on fuel during the term of the NDA government. There should instead be additional tax on the rich, it said.
The discussions on the draft political resolution will be over by noon on Friday when the general secretary will respond to the queries raised and the steering committee will then finalise the resolution after incorporating necessary amendments from the 4,001-odd amendments it received. The political organisational report will be presented by Polit Bureau member Prakash Karat on Friday night.
