Thiruvananthapuram: Finance minister Dr T M Thomas Isaac, taking a position that went counter to his reported stand in the CPM central committee held last October, said that the Left parties had suffered whenever they had struck an alliance with non-Left parties. “As a result of the various alliances the party has struck over the years the CPM has gone backward and not forward,” Dr Isaac said while replying to the Budget discussion in the Assembly on Wednesday.
Short of calling it a blunder, the finance minister said that the CPM’s support of the first UPA government had dented the party’s standing. Championing the isolationist Prakash Karat line, which had the full backing of CPM’s Kerala faction but about which he reportedly had reservations, Isaac said: “The party has a future only if the Left alternative is strengthened."
At the CC meeting held in New Delhi on October 15, 2015, Dr Isaac had backed the line adopted by Sitaram Yechury that the CPM should have an electoral understanding with the Congress to knock the BJP out of power. Dr Isaac had then said the situation in Bengal must be factored in while formulating the tactical line. Eventually, it was the Prakash Karat line, which vehemently opposed any truck with the Congress, carried the day at the CC held in Kolkota on January 22. In fact, Dr Isaac had even abstained from voting at the CC where Karat’s line won with a 55-31 vote.
