Comrades meet to find lifeline for hammer & sickle

NEW DELHI: AKG Bhawan, the CPM headquarters in the Capital, until recently the location of many an important economic agenda-setting meetings for the previous UPA government, will bear testimony to the dramatic rise and fall of CPM���s political fortunes over the last five years. The irony won���t be lost on the party���s polit bureau and central committee (CC) members, who will gather at the CPM office Friday onwards for three days to examine just what went wrong during the LS polls.

The top decision-making bodies of CPM are likely to recommend steps to suggest ���correctives��� so that the party can reclaim its position in the assembly polls in Kerala and West Bengal in 2011.

With its numbers in the Lok Sabha dropping to 16 from 42, the party is facing its toughest political challenge ever. Questions are sure to be raised about the CPM���s decision to pull out of the previous UPA government on the nuclear deal issue; the failure of the West Bengal government under Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to handle land acquisition in Nandigram and Singur; and the factional feud in Kerala between chief minister V S Achuthanandan and state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan.

Since these issues are intricately linked with the balance of power within the party (the nuke deal decision being general secretary Prakash Karat���s initiative, and Nandigram and Singur episodes bearing Mr Bhattacharjee���s stamp), they are unlikely to be highlighted in any corrective steps the party will plan.

Demands for Mr Karat and Mr Bhattacharjee���s resignation notwithstanding, what seems certain is heated debates, but no real change in the power structure at the top.

���The meetings are being held to primarily understand the meaning of this (Lok Sabha) mandate. What we did not did not do that made the people vote the way they did,��� CC member Nilotpal Basu said talking about the agenda for the meetings. He identified three primary areas of focus at the meeting ��� a national political tactical line for the party; state-specific factors that lead to the losses; and the role of the party organisation in the states. He added the party would plan corrective steps after discussing the issues.

Already, the state committee meetings in West Bengal and Kerala have come around to agree that there have been serious violations of communist principles by its leaders and cadres, besides other issues, which led to their rout.

The West Bengal unit noted that a section of the party workers had adopted ���a lifestyle and attitude not consonant with the communist ideology���, the Kerala unit pointed at the violation of ���Leninist principles��� that created a ���bad impression��� among the people. Both units have said people rejected CPM���s third front experiment.