Yechury blames state leadership for poll debacle

Kolkata: The state leadership of CPIM is responsible for the debacle of the party in the general election whose result was announced recently, party general Secretary Sitaram Yechury said on Tuesday. He attended the state committee meeting of the party at Alimuddin Street on Tuesday morning. The district leadership had been asked to submit report on the poll debacle.

Yechury hinted at inducting fresh blood into the leadership but did not elaborate how many new faces are going to be inducted in the state committee. CPIM has never faced such crisis since the inception of the party in 1964. The party has only three MPs in the Lok Sabha. In Bengal, the party had fielded 29 candidates and another nine candidates were fielded by its partners, CPI, Forward Bloc and RSP. Altogether, the Left Front had fielded 38 candidates. The deposit of 37 out of 38 candidates has been forfeited. The lone exception is Bikas Ranjan Bhattacharya, who had contested from Jadavpur Lok Sabha seat. Bhattacharya stood third.

Moreover, 22 percent votes of the party have been shifted to the BJP. In 2014, the party secured 29 percent votes, which have gone down to 7 percent. Before the Lok Sabha election, the Front partners had alleged that the CPIM in league with the BJP had planned to defeat their candidates. Their allegation has come true.

Some party leaders alleged that whenever the party is in trouble, the leaders said fresh blood would be inducted in the leadership. However, it never happened in the past. The old guards continue to rule the party with their outdated ideas. At the beginning of the meeting some leaders pointed out people did not accept the party's view that the Trinamool Congress and the BJP are equally dangerous in Bengal. It may be mentioned that on May 31 party's politburo member Mohammad Salim had tweeted that the time had come to categorise the BJP as the main enemy in the state and take measures to thwart its advances.