CPI(M) amends tactical line to allow an ‘understanding’ with Congress for 2019 general elections

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) amended its tactical line on Friday to allow an “understanding” with the Congress ahead of the 2019 general elections and quelled a rift in the party.

The CPI(M), however, will not have a political alliance with the Congress, the largest opposition party. The middle path on the tactical line was arrived at after a politburo meeting on Friday.

Factions associated with general secretary Sitaram Yechury and Prakash Karat had been trading charges against each other over the political-tactical line at the 22nd Party Congress in Hyderabad.

The final version of the political-tactical line replaced the phrase “without any understanding or electoral alliance with the Congress” and added “without political alliance with the Congress.”

As the two factions have come to an understanding, party insiders said that Sitaram Yechury is set to get another term as general secretary as his demands have been met.

Speaking at the party Congress, Yechury had insisted that he was not seeking permission for an electoral alliance with the Congress.

“There is no dispute over an electoral alliance with the Congress. There is no dispute in the priority that the BJP should be defeated. Each one of us knows that our priority is to get rid of the BJP-RSS government. The only difference is on how to achieve this target,” he had said at a press conference earlier this week.

Karat too had tried to show flexibility, saying that the political-tactical line and the 2019 Lok Sabha elections should not be mixed up.