West Bengal CPI(M) faces stormy state committee meeting

KOLKATA: The West Bengal unit of the CPI(M) is in some kind of panic regarding the forthcoming two-day state committee meeting in Kolkata, commencing Monday. The state leadership is afraid that the session will be tumultuous and that it will have to face a storm of criticism from most of those who will be attending the session.

It has therefore urged the party’s all-India general secretary Prakash Karat, politburo member Sitaram Yechuri and Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar to be present at the meeting so that together they can pacify the gathering and counter the criticism which is inevitable.

This is the first time that Sarkar is being called in as savior to a West Bengal state committee meeting. While the local CPI(M) has won just two of the total 42 Lok Sabha seats in the elections just gone by – an approximately 8% drop in vote share from 30.08% in the 2011 assembly elections to 22% -- Manik Sarkar has won both the Lok Sabha seats in his state, a consecutive fourth time that he has done so.

The meeting will analyse the pathetic performance of the West Bengal CPI(M) in the light of all the internal reports that have come from the various district units of the party. There isn’t any doubt about the fact that the rank and file of the CPI(M) in Bengal is thoroughly dissatisfied with the state leadership.

Already some expelled CPI(M) leaders have held a demonstration near the state party headquarters at Alimuddin Street on May 27 and demanded the removal of Karat, Biman Bose and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee . The rare demonstration was led by expelled CPI(M) leader Abdur Rezzak Mollah, who had claimed that senior party leaders did nothing while grassroot workers were being mercilessly attacked by Trinamool musclemen.

Indeed, that demonstration so jolted the state leadership that it has sought a meeting with chief minister Mamata Banerjee on June 9 to plead for a halt in post-poll violence – a rarity again for the CPI(M).

Party sources said that many senior leaders in Bankura and East Midnapore are fuming at the state leadership’s incompetence and already there is a wind in favour of replacing the 74-year old Biman Bose with the 55-year old party’s south 24-Parganas secretary Sujan Chakraborty.