From Sankar Ray Nonagenarian polit bureau member of CPI(M) Jyoti Basu once again proved his uncommon horse sense by reminding senior party functionaries and rank and file of the necessity of talking sense while criticizing the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government.
Speaking at the condolence meeting of the former Kerala chief minister and PB member Erambala Krishnan Nayanar, central committee member of UP state committee secretary Ram Sumer Yadav and Tebhaga veteran Gobinda Kundu on the same Sunday in Kolkata, Basu said that the Marxists shouldn't make impractical demand.
''We are not going to make any demand on the Centre which is impractical.
We know their limitations.
We won't do this because we do not want to have BJP here again." The former West Bengal chief minister gave a veiled warning to his successor Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee who made a strange comment at a victory rally at the Shahid Minar maidan in Kolkata on 23 May.
CPI(M) central organ People's Democracy carried the report on 30 May last.
"Buddhadeb made it emphatically clear when he said that in the present political circumstances, the Congress-led government could not ignore in any manner the 60-strong Left presence in the Lok Sabha.
'If,' said Buddhadeb, 'we say 'yes' the union government could get ahead, and if we declare 'no' they must pause and consider the steps they were about to take.' A loud cheer followed immediately", it wrote.
National and local dailies too carried the news promptly.
However, some veterans of the ruling Left Front, including some CPI(M) leaders, didn't like this deviation from basic norms of democratic etiquette.
After all, CPI(M) general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet, Basu and even Bhattacharjee himself stated categorically that the Left group won't allow the BJP and others to pull down the UPA government.
But because of this, the Congress or the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is not supposed to offer a kind of canine subservience to a few communist honchos.
Such words from a PB member of CPI(M) are not only unbecoming of his stature but harmful for nurturing a healthy coalition culture.
Basu's statement reflects the displeasure of many CPI(M) leaders with Bhattacharjee on this issue.
But the oldest PB member hasn't given up the precious possession of a communist party - adherence to "independent class role" while forging an alliance or adjustment with the bourgeoisie against the common enemy fascistic Sangh Parivar.
''The Common Minimum Programme has many nice words but we want to know how it is being implemented so that it does not remain nice words.
We want to know what the government is doing on a day-to-day basis.
What are their budget proposals? What specific steps are they taking to implement the CMP?'' he said at the same meeting.
The CPI(M) mouthpiece in a cautious editorial, captioned "Get Down To Governance" wrote : "The strengthening of India's secular democratic foundations must be urgently addressed through a de-toxification of the body politic.
The people are eagerly awaiting long denied relief and improvement in their livelihood.
Country is raring to advance and its energies must be channelled in proper positive directions.
There is a tremendous amount of goodwill for this government led by Dr Manmohan Singh to discharge these responsibilities." About the role of the Left, led by CPI(M), it asserted, saying, "While fully committed to support this government and to thwart all efforts by the communal forces to stage come back; while endorsing the CMP, the CPI(M) and the Left will function as a watch-dog of the government and not as its lap-dog." But the media-hyped West Bengal CM seems unable to check the temptation of denigrating the Congress and still plays to the gallery.
At a victory meeting on Sunday at Krishnagar, Nadia district town - the CPI(M) snatched both the seats from the district, one each from the BJP and National Trinamool Congress - Bhattacharjee characterised the Congress as "a party of the rich" and said provocatively, " If the Central government doesn't do something substantially for the poor, we will be forced to withdraw support from the UPA government." Some biggies at the Muzaffar Ahmed Bhavan, state CPI(M) headquarters, try to cover up Bhattacharjee's "individualistic utterances".
These are needed to buck up the workers.
A wellknown CC member and labour historian is believed to have expressed his reservations about these statements.
" The veteran CC member questioned the rich-poor dichotomy.
We are guided by Marx and not Proudhon who wrote Philosophy of Poverty and Marx and refuted him.
We characterise Congress as a bourgeois-landlord party.
To call it as a party of money bags is to deviate from class standpoint", said a whole-timer of Kolkata district committee of CPI(M).
He took very strong exception to the logic that Bhattacharjee's statement was to enthuse cadres.
" Such an explanation is very derogatory.
Should our leaders keep the level of class consciousness of our workers down the line?" A secretary of West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee, preferring anonymity, told IPA, " We would refrain from making any comment at least now.
We like the approach of Surjeet and Basu.
Otherwise we could say that the CPI(M) helped BJP win five more seats by putting up candidates.
The BJP's tally would have been 13 less than the Congress's.
These are Malegaon(ST) and Wardha in Maharashtra, Dohad(ST) in Gujarat, Sikar and Ganganagar(SC) in Rajasthan.
The CPI(M) leaders stated and wrote repeatedly that the party won't put up candidates to split anti-BJP votes but in practice, the party did exactly the opposite.
But we do not want to create a hullabaloo about this."(IPA Service) About us | Advertise | Other Publications | Subscriptions | Weather | Letters | Send Mail Disclaimer: Information is being made available at this site purely as a measure of public facilitation.
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