New Delhi: The CPM central committee, at a meeting in Kolkata, on Sunday rejected a resolution moved by its general secretary Sitaram Yechury and backed by its influential Bengal unit, for a political understanding with the Congress.
With this, the battle has now shifted to the party congress to be held in Hyderabad in April, where an alternative resolution may be moved by at least 12 state units reiterating the need for a broader political understanding with the Congress in order to defeat the BJP in 2019.
The “tyranny of the majority”, which the Left party has accused the BJP of practising in the Lok Sabha on many occasions, came back to haunt the CPM as its central committee defeated the resolution moved by the Bengal faction led by Mr Yechury by a margin of 55-31, virtually closing the door for any political understanding with the Congress ahead of the 2019 general election. The central committee instead adopted the draft put forward by Mr Yechury’s arch-rival, former general secretary Prakash Karat.
Interestingly, though Mr Yechury or his so called Bengal faction was hugely outnumbered by Mr Karat’s Kerala faction at the central committee as well as the politburo earlier, at the party congress the two sides would have almost equal representation. The party congress has roughly 600 members.
