CPI(M) politburo meet as uncertainty over Cong tie-up continues

The state CPI(M) leaders are anxiously waiting for the party’s crucial politburo meeting on Tuesday where the main issue for discussion will be election strategy.

The Central committee will meet on February 17 and 18 to discuss the matter. The state leaders in the two day meeting held on February 12 and 13 have strongly pleaded in favour of people’s alliance which is actually an alliance with the Congress. Though the statistics is not in favour of the state leaders, they hope that the central leadership will honour what they call “the sentiment of the people to oust a non performing government.” The leaders have made their views clear in presence of the party’s general secretary Sitaram Yehchuri and veteran politburo member Prakash Karat.

Of the four politburo members from the state, Biman Bose, Suryakanta Misra, and Mohammad Selim are in favour of the alliance. As a matter of fact, Misra, Selim and former Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee have been speaking in favour of the alliance for the past one month. But Hannan Mollah who is also a politburo member is not in favour of the alliance. Among the 91 central committee members, 16 are members of the politburo and they cannot speak in the central committee meeting. Though party veteran VS Achyutanandan has spoken in favour of the state CPI(M) leaders, Pinnari Vijayan and Brinda Karat are not in favour of the alliance. The central members from Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are also against the move.

The leaders felt that even if it was called a people’s alliance, the party would lose its credibility and would be termed as an opportunist party by many. As there is no guarantee that the party would come to power in West Bengal if the alliance was made here, the Central Committee members are not in favour of “burning the hand”.