CPM Rips Into Bengal Unit For Congress Tie-Up, Says 'Rectify It'

Kolkata: After the unprecedented and summary expulsion of a member of its top decision making body on the issue, the CPM today pulled up its Bengal unit for its alliance with the Congress in the just concluded Assembly elections that Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress won by a mile.

Earlier, after an initial review of the poll results in May, the CPM Politburo had said, "The electoral tactics adopted in West Bengal was not in consonance with the decision not to have an alliance or understanding with the Congress."

Today, after a three-day meeting in Delhi of the Politburo and the top decision making body, the Central Committee, the CPM repeated that statement but went a step forward. It said this violation of the party line "should be rectified".

"The Central Committee stressed the importance of adhering to the political-tactical line adopted at the 21st Congress of the Party," the CPM statement, issued around 4 pm, said.

Hours earlier, the CPM expelled Ms Jagwati Sangwan, head of the party's women's wing and Central Committee member. Ms Sangwan had stepped out of the Central Committee meeting and told the media that the secretary of the Bengal unit of the CPM, Dr Surya Kanta Mishra, should resign for violating the party line and going for an alliance with Congress.

Ms Sangwan said the phrase "not in consonance" was not adequate. The party should call the Bengal unit's alliance with the Congress a "violation" of the party line.

So saying, she announced at the meeting that she was resigning from the central committee and the party. When leaders said they would discuss the issue later, she walked out. Sources say her expulsion did not follow proper procedure. Politburo member Brinda Karat later met Ms Sangwan.
 Dr Mishra is a Politburo member who defended the alliance even after the elections and offered to resign on the issue last week.  He was not available for comment today on the Central Committee statement as he took a train back to Kolkata from Delhi.  

But Bengal CPM leaders put up a strong argument at the Central Committee, saying, "If there is no party, there can't be no party line."

Of 73 party members at the meeting, around 20 spoke in favour of the alliance, saying CPM cadre had been brutally attacked by Trinamool workers and government machinery after the elections.

Bengal's Surya Kanta Mishra and others like Gautam Deb, Ramchandra Dom and Shyamal Chakraborty said the party had no choice but to join hands with the Congress. "It is not possible to fight the Trinamool alone as it is resorting to violence at every level. If we do not remain alive how will we fight our political adversary?" a leader said.

Bengal unit leaders also point to the Central Committee communique in which, just before calling for "rectification", the statement says, "The strength of the broadest people's resistance is the answer to meet this unprecedented unleashing of violence."

Mixed signals from Delhi, state CPM functionaries are saying.

On June 25, the state Congress will hold a protest rally in Kolkata against price rise and the Mamata Banerjee government and its chief, Adhir Chowdhury, has publicly invited Surya Kanta Mishra and the CPM to join it. All eyes will be on what the Bengal unit does after the central reprimand.

"We are fighting with the Congress party in Kerala. How could the party join hands with the same Congress in another state? The party line cannot be different in one state and the rest of the country," a CPM leader from Kerala told NDTV.