By Tirthankar Mitra
KOLKATA: West Bengal unit of CPI(M)’s organisational muscle has been weakening since 2011 after Trinamool Congress replaced it as the ruling dispensation in the state through that year’s assembly elections. The party which had called Bangla Bandh often during its tenure against “step motherly attitude” of the Central Government; has not launched any major movement for over a decade, nether against the Trinamool government nor against the centre.
It cannot be said that there are lack of issues. Be it peasants distress owing to lower remunerative price for their produce or contractual farming or corruption by the TMC functionaries, a clutch of national and local issues were either not taken up or not pursued seriously.
The state unit of CPI(M) appears to be faced with an increasing erosion in its once widespread support base. There has been a marked depletion in the ranks of the party activists. The students wing of SFI and the workers’ front CITU, both frontal organisations which had once produced front ranking leaders seem to be a pale shadow of their former selves. This has telltale effect on the electoral performance of the party.
The CPI(M) was a force to reckon with even after its defeat in 2011 Assembly elections in West Bengal. But a organisationally weaker Congress after allying with the Left Front in 2016 election made significant electoral gains, the CPI(M) played second fiddle to it.
Leader of the Opposition in West Bengal Assembly was elected from the Congress. The Congress and Left combine led by Abdul Mannan often caught the Trinamool Congress on the wrong foot during the Assembly sessions. But both the parties were left without a single legislator after the 2021 Assembly polls. Strangely enough, DYFI’s long march from the hills to the plains could not be properly channelized by the party leadership. Before the 2021 assembly polls.
Even the burning issue of allegations of corruption in teachers recruitment could not be turned into a springboard of a popular agitation. The same fate happened to the stir on the alleged rape and murder of a junior doctor of RG Kar hospital. The mass upsurge in August last year and continuing for another three months panicked the TMC government. The CPI)M_ took active part in the agitation but after he agreement with the Chief Minister, the CPI(M) became a non entity.
Delving deep, the leadership of the parent party has not been able to give a direction to the agitation of frontal organisations. Post the passing of Anil Biswas, the state secretaries succeeding him, be it Biman Bose or the present incumbent Md Salim failed to obstruct the rise of Trinamool Congress and then the BJP. There is no leader in the state CPI(M) who can come anywhere the popularity of Mamata Banerjee.
A considerable section of grassroot activists of the CPI(M) which was a ‘vote bank” to the party in successive elections have changed their loyalty. The organisational structure of the party is in shambles in West Bengal. In last Lok Sabha elections in 2024, the one all powerful CPI(M) could not put its agents in a number of polling booths. The youth cadres are very few in the state CPI(M) compared to the TMC and the BJP.
The old faces of the leadership which was an anathema to the common voters continue to be the driving force in the party. The sloth and complacency which these leaders had acquired in the 34 year long front regime is yet to be shed. Issue based agitations need to be launched. and thereafter it has to be sustained.. All reviews are talking about this but nothing happens on the ground.
The state CPI(M) leadership is yet to come up with a viable programme to counter TMC government’s social security schemes. Dubbing them “alms” as several party’s senior leaders have termed, have rubbed many voters the wrong way. The ongoing conferences of the party at the lower level on the eve of the state conference in February end have failed to enthuse the party cadres and supporters outside,
In all, 18 district committee members have withdrawn their names in South 24 Parganas district committee. Sources stated it was a fallout of a squabble between former Diamond Harbour MP Shamik Lahiri and central committee member, Sujan Chakraborty. The party organisation in North 24 Parganas has not recovered after the passing of Subhas Chakraborty.
For the West Bengal politics, this is a pathetic situation. The TMC is the dominant ruling party and the BJP with 70 members in the assembly now is the only opposition. The Left led by the CPI(M) can only assert its existence by organizing movements outside as there is no member in the assembly. The state CPI(M) has wasted its years since the 2016 elections by not taking any initiative to emerge as a fighting opposition party. The people of Bengal have so many grievances against the TMC government. The BJP in its own way is taking the advantage as the Left is not present in the fields and factories.
Whatever is decided by the February state conference of the CPI(M) will have little impact on the next assembly polls in the state in 2026. The central committee of the CPI(M) will be meeting in Kolkata later this month to finalise the documents for the Madurai party congress scheduled in April this year. The CC members must have their own assessment of the ground situation of the party in Bengal rather than depending on the reviews made by the state leaders. Bengal will be lost to the CPI(M) if the present conditions in the state party are allowed to continue for long. (IPA Service)
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