Yechury defends tie-up with Congress, says alliance should have been bigger

However, he did not clarify what he meant by a ‘bigger alliance’ and also avoided taking the name of Congress during his speech. Similar to the other pro-alliance leaders, Yechury too brought forward the violence theory and urged comrades to put up stiff resistance.

Addressing the comrades on the concluding day of the two-day state committee meeting, he said every state had its own political scenario and each state would give its report to the central committee, whose three-day meeting will be held on June 18 in Delhi.

Yechury had supported the Surya Kanta Misra lobby, which supported the alliance. However, the party faced disaster, as they managed to win only 26 MLAs in the 294 West Bengal Legislative Assembly. Its partner Congress got 44 seats.

Meanwhile, the politburo, in its statement, made it very clear that the alliance with Congress was “not in consonance with the decision of the Central Committee.” Political experts said Yechury’s statement might lead to infighting within the Left Front and might invite further misfortune to the party in the 2018 Panchayat election.

It may be mentioned that the Left Front allies, Forward Bloc, Revolutionary Socialist Party and CPI have univocally told Left Front chairman Biman Bose that they would quit if Congress was invited to the party programmes. 

Accordingly, Bose issued a statement which said that Congress would not be invited in party’s movements. Against the backdrop of Bose’s statement, Yechury’s statement could create further confusion in the party and possibly lead to mass exodus.

The second day of the two-day state committee meeting witnessed hot debate over forming the alliance. Amal Halder from Burdwan said rural people did not support the alliance and it had brought misfortune to the party.

Congress supporters did not vote for CPI(M) candidates and the party would face more trouble if the alliance was allowed to continue. Rebutting his statement, Tapas Sinha from Midnapore said the people had supported the alliance, but he failed to explain why they rejected the party’s nominees.

Sinha said the central committee and politburo members should visit the violence-torn areas instead of making statements.

Party insiders said never in the past had the state committee members expressed such venomous statements against the central committee and politburo. Meanwhile, West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee president Adhir Chowdhury said the party would invite CPI(M) to join its programmes in future. “We are not going to leave CPI(M)’s hands at the moment. It is CPI(M)’s business to convince the Left Front allies,” he remarked. In view of the political scenario in Bengal, experts said the three-day central committee meeting was likely to be stormy and major differences with the Bengal lobby might lead to virtual split of the party.