CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury. (File Photo)
The rift between the Bengal and Kerala units of the CPM seems to be widening by the day over the issue of party general secretary Sitaram Yechury not being allowed for a re-nomination to the Rajya Sabha for a third term. The West Bengal leaders of the CPM have already started preparations to raise the issue at the 22nd party Congress scheduled in April 2018. State CPM leaders are planning to corner the Kerala lobby over which Yechury’s predecessor Prakash Karat has decisive influence. It was objections from Kerala leaders that blocked Yechury’s third term in the Rajya Sabha.
According to party insiders, the CPM’s Bengal brigade is also lobbying other non- Kerala state units for support in the forthcoming party Congress.
Party sources said that apart from West Bengal, leaders in the party’s Tripura and Odisha units are also of the opinion that the denial of a third term to Yechury was a blunder. Even the majority in the party unit of Andhra Pradesh, the home state of Yechury, is likely to toe the Bengal line.
“We are also discussing the issue with other states like Punjab and Rajasthan,” said a central committee member of the CPM from West Bengal.
The CPM’s West Bengal lobby was keen on getting Yechury into the Rajya Sabha from the state for a third term and Congress high command was willing to back his candidature but the proposal was blocked in the Politburo and central committee mainly by the party’s Kerala lobby, which enjoys majority in the two decision making bodies of the party. The matter is likely to be also discussed in detail at the two-day West Bengal state committee meeting on August 7 and 8, 2017 at Kolkata. Yechury is likely to be present.
Interestingly, Surjya Kanta Mishra, Politburo member and party’s state secretary in West Bengal, hinted on a debate at the party Congress while addressing a programme on the 129th birth anniversary of Marxist Muzaffar Ahmed on Saturday evening. “We organise the party Congress every three years. All issues are debated and discussed there and accordingly decisions are taken through voting. I am not saying anything more now,” Mishra said during his address.
