CPM dares to go it alone

No truck with Congress; No talk of Third Front

• CPI (M) also to shun tie-ups with regional parties
• So, no alliance with either TDP or TRS in future
• 21st national conference begins in Vizag today
• Draft resolution says no to secular bourgeoisie parties

Hyderabad: The draft political resolution to be placed for debate and adoption at the 21st congress of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) states that the party would not have any truck with the Congress in future. This assertion assumes significance given the fact that the CPI (M) extended crucial support for the survival of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government during 2004-2009.

The draft political resolution to be adopted at the Visakhapatnam meet says, “While the main direction of the struggle is against the BJP, the party will continue to oppose the Congress. It has pursued neo-liberal policies and it is the Congress-led UPA government’s anti-people policies and corruption which helped the BJP acquire popular support. The party will have no understanding or electoral alliance with the Congress.”

The CPM is all set to redefine its political and tactical line at its all India conference which begins in the city on Tuesday. If the agenda proposed in the discussion paper is adopted, the party would take a hardened stand against the state governments led by regional parties. Both the Telugu states have governments led by regional parties. The CPI (M) earlier had a long political alliance with the Telugu Desam Party and forged an alliance with the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) in 2009.

The party now feels that such intimate association with the regional parties has adversely affected independent growth of the party and its mass base. The new political resolution redefines the tactical line when it says, “It is also necessary to politically oppose the bourgeois-landlord politics and policies of the regional parties in order to organise the working people and mobilise them around the Left and democratic platform.”

The CPI (M) seems to have shelved the idea of the Third Front which it has assiduously promoted for decades. The new tactical line to be adopted at this meet in its review of party tactics says, “The efforts to project a third alternative or a Left, democratic and secular alternative at the national level have not been conducive to developing the independent role of the party.

The projection of the Left and democratic Front was hindered by the pursuit of alliances with the secular bourgeois parties either at the national level or state level (at least in the weaker states).” Stating that an all-India line of rallying the secular bourgeois parties for an alliance often detracts from the work of rallying the Left and democratic forces in the state, the CPI (M) draft report sends a clear political message that it is no longer keen on forging a Third Front.

The CPI (M)’s revised stand comes close on the heels of various splinter groups of erstwhile Janata Parivar coming together. The CPI (M) state unit in united Andhra Pradesh has sought an alliance with Praja Rajyam Party in 2009. But, the central committee of the party made the state unit go with the TDP, considering it to be a better partner in the all-India combine. The State units of CPI (M) would no longer have such a predicament as they would be free to choose electoral allies. The draft tactical line says, “It should however not be dictated by any all India line to rally the secular bourgeois parties for a national alliance.”