Kolkata: In 2004, the CPM had won 26 out of 42 seats in West Bengal. This time it got just 9. As the CPM's state committee met in Kolkata on Thursday to discuss what went wrong, there were fingers pointed at Prakash Karat's policies and the performance of Buddhadeb Bhattacharya's government.
Ideologically, Prakash Karat rightly opposed the nuclear deal, most Bengal CPM leaders have said. But withdrawing support to the UPA was an electoral tactical blunder, enabling Congress and Trinamool to unite and trounce the CPM. Another blunder: the pursuit of the Third Front.
Says CPM state committee member M D Salim: "Everything under the sun was discussed."
Buddhadeb Bhattacharya also came under fire for what was termed as non-governance, from the failure to implement REGA, failure to get the state police to act effectively at Singur and Nandigram and failure to make the panchayat department deliver.
Says state committee member Amitava Nandy : "There are multi-factors, not only one factor that is responsible for the defeat in the election battle."
The election review also opened a can of worms about arrogance and corruption among party workers, something that is the state secretary Biman Bose's department.
The blame game is unlikely to result in heads rolling in Kolkata or Delhi. But with the West Bengal unit of the CPM virtually rejecting the central leadership's electoral tactical line, the top brass can expect turbulence when the party's Central Committee meets in Delhi on 20th June.