I too am a fan of sitaram yechury, used to read his articles
since my college when he was writing for the Hindu. He always had a very
special place in the Hindu owing to the bond he shared with N ram, the then
editor in chief of The Hindu.
I read from various papers that Yechury had a disagreemnt
from the kerala unit and they wanted S Ramachandran Pillai to be the secretary.
Although, cpim has claimed all these gossips as baseless, but let us assume, if
there was a tussle for the general secretary position in CPI(M) and let us assess
the political stand why the kerala unit had taken this stand against yechury.
Left is completely demoralized in west Bengal. Only an
alliance can save them now from the total loss they are incurring in Bengal in spite
27 years of a strong bastion in Bengal. Now a revival is required. Back in 1967,
when the congress had the upper hand in Bengal, there was a split in the
congress and under Ajoy Mukherjee, a congress veteran, a new bangla congress was formed. CPI(M)
then aligned with the congress and resulted in a united front government with
ajoy Mukherjee as Chief minister and Jyothi basu as the Home minister, the
first stepping stone for the left in the government formation. After siddharth
ray’s tenure and the emergency period, the left never gave up Bengal until
Mammata Banerjee had routed the CPI(M) in 2011.
This history needs to be re-enacted in Bengal for the left
to get back all their efforts of hard work to shape Bengal society, which now
seems to be under threat by Trinamool’s , what left terms as goonda raaj. An
alliance between the congress and CPI(M) is already being plotted in the next
year’s state elections. As the left seems to be going along with the congress
in the Rajyasabha to counter BJP, there seems a ground preparation going on for
this unholy but practical union.
Kerala has a different picture to tell. The rise of
communalism to an extent is curbed by both the major parties congress and
CPI(M), who lead the two fronts in the state and directly pitted against each other. BJP is
attacking the left to unseat the left from the main political rival to
congress, who already is secured with the caste and minority votes in their pouch. If
elsewhere a union is formed between the congress and the left, the news savvy
kerala public , would believe that the vote would be for the same side of the
coin. Hence, the kerala unit clearly requires
a person at the helm, who is firmly against a congress-left alliance.
The picture is very clear although it is an internal ruckus
and the media is portraying VS achutanandan, as the prime factor , the reason
for kerala CPI(M) official faction’s allegiance to comrade SRP. But the media should
know that it is more than just this small issue.
