Biman Bose blames 'callous' comrades for deteriorating condition of party in state

Kolkata: Veteran CPI(M) leader and Politburo member Biman Bose has held a section of "callous, irresponsible and politically inexperienced" comrades responsible for the party's failure to assess the present situation when important issues like saffronisation of education and communal politics have begun to seriously affect the political scenario in Bengal.

In the annual number of CPI(M)'s Bengali mouthpiece Ganashakti, Bose's article has created a flutter within the party. This is significant as it comes at a time when the party has recently expelled Rajya Sabha member Ritabrata Banerjee for his "anti-party" activities.

Bose has admitted that the members have failed miserably to set up a solid political ideology and recruit cadres who would have put the interest of "many" above their "own". He has also observed that the party workers do not attend its programmes regularly.

It may be mentioned that from 2008, the CPI(M)'s organisational weakness have been exposed for the first time when it performed badly in the Panchayat election. In 2009 in the Lok Sabha polls, the party's performance was poor and in 2010 it failed to retain Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) seat and lost to Trinamool Congress. Then in 2011, the state witnessed a change of guard and Mamata Banerjee came to power. From 2011 to 2016, most of the party candidates lost their deposits in the municipal elections and bypolls. In 2016, CPI(M) got only 28 out of 294 seats in the Assembly election — the lowest ever in the past four decades. But despite the failure of the party, no statement has been issued so far blaming the "inactive and pleasure-loving" party workers. This is for the first time when a senior CPI(M) leader has given a piece of his mind urging the workers to participate actively.

Drawing a parallel between the comrades who had helped the party to consolidate in Bengal, Bose questioned the dedication of the new party workers. He remarked that many of the old ones who had given leadership to the movement had either died or had become infirm due to old age and are unable to take part in the movement any longer. Statistics show that in Bengal, 98 percent of the cadres had joined the party after 1977 when it came to power. As a result, they lacked the experience in leading in bad times and "became tired quite easily while taking part in campaigns". Bose urged the fresh recruits to change their attitude and read more Leftist literature including Marxist philosophy which has reached "rock-bottom" for the past few years.