After the Polit Bureau, the CPM’s Central Committee too on Monday foiled party general secretary Sitaram Yechury’s plans to ally with the Congress. The committee passed Yechury’s predecessor Prakash Karat-mooted resolution for having no alliance with the Congress by a narrow margin and rejected the general secretary and Bengal unit’s resolution favouring a tie-up. The Polit Bureau had last week rejected Yechury’s resolution.
However, the committee, whose three-day-long meeting ended on Monday, asked the Polit Bureau to consider Yechury’s suggestion to ally with other secular parties in the next meeting in January.
According to party insiders, out of the 64 members who attended the meeting, 33 members supported Karat’s resolution for alliance with other secular parties, avoiding the Congress. Though most of the leaders from Kerala supported Karat, veteran leader VS Achuthanandan backed the resolution by Yechury and the party’s Bengal unit. Yechury had urged for a broad alliance with the Congress and all secular parties to block the surging BJP, which is the “main enemy”.
In the previous Polit Bureau meeting, Karat got nine votes and Yechury got five votes. Kerala leaders, led by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and others, argued that any sort of alliance with the Congress would hamper the party’s prospects in Kerala, where the CPIM’s main rival is the ‘Grand Old Party.’
The committee members from South Indian States also supported the Karat-mooted resolution.
However, at the end of the meeting, the committee, in a small victory for Yechury, observed that in the forthcoming meeting of the Polit Bureau in January, it would accommodate Yechury’s views on aligning with other secular parties in the party’s draft political resolution in the next party congress. The 22nd party congress is scheduled in April 2018.
In fact, aligning with other secular parties is also part of Karat’s resolution, which got the majority votes in the meeting. After the meeting, Yechury and the Bengal lobby have become a minority in the party, while the Kerala unit has become the decision-maker.
“The Central Committee authorized the Polit Bureau to prepare the Draft Political Resolution for the 22nd Congress on the basis of the Polit Bureau outline and the discussions in the Central Committee,” said the party communiqué issued on Monday, without revealing the actual contents and outcome of the committee meeting.