24 Karat melodrama: The CPM's Pranab split

The Pranab-split in the CPM is now out in the open. It was no secret that the Politburo was divided on supporting Pranab Mukherjee’s rise to the top. The Bengal faction pushed hard for it, loath to repeat “the historic blunder” of 1996 when Jyoti Basu was denied the PM’s post by the party. At that time Prakash Karat sided with the nay sayers. This time around he swung the other way. In the upcoming issue of People’s Democracy, the party paper, Karat comes out swinging about his decision to support the minister whose policies the party has consistently opposed. The rationale? In one word, realpolitik. According to The Telegraph which published excerpts from the article, Karat thinks that the presidential election has shown “fissures” in the ruling coalition that the party would be foolish not to exploit. Or as he puts it, it was “necessary to utilize the conflicts and fissures within the ruling alliance between the bourgeoisie parties.” [caption id=“attachment_357301” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat at a press conference after a meeting of the Left parties in New Delhi. PTI”] [/caption] But how does supporting the “bourgeoisie” candidate for president help the CPM? Couldn’t they have just abstained? Absolutely not, says Karat. That would be lining up with Mamata Banerjee who might end up doing just that in order not to throw her lot in with the BJP. And Karat made it clear that even though Mamata gave the party a bloody nose in last year’s elections Bengal remains the Left’s true citadel and the politburo had to “defend the strongest base of the Left.” But reading between the lines of the article it’s clear that Karat sees a big opportunity to fish in the UPA’s troubled waters. He talks about “a churning process” and a “political realignment.” He also carefully inserts the CPM into the already unhappy marriage of the Congress and  Trinamool. In the guise of an almost sympathetic well-wisher he talks about how the “Congress is not spared” in Trinamool’s “violent terror campaign” and how the TMC is working “to marginalize the Congress and to appropriate its base.” Translation: Congress, we feel your pain. And we are here. But Karat’s volte face has not gone down without protest. In fact, it’s turned into the Karat versus Junior Karat showdown. Prasenjit Bose, a rising star in the party and  convener of its Research Unit, a familiar face on television, often nicknamed “Junior Karat” has quit in “shock and dismay.” Bose had already made news by opposing the party’s land acquisition policy in Bengal and the police firing in Nandigram both of which left the CPM red-faced and helped the Trinamool come to power. His resignation letter published in Pragoti does not mince words. He points out the Pranab decision is a “clear violation” of the party’s stated political line of fighting both the Congress and the BJP. In the process it’s not just supported Pranab Mukherjee but the CPM has disrupted Left unity. The CPI and RSP are abstaining. The Forward Bloc and CPM are supporting Pranab. “Such brazen violation of the political line by the Party leadership within less than three months of the Party Congress is utterly bewildering,” writes Bose. Bose then goes on to shred Mukherjee’s record from his championing of the US-India nuclear deal to his “neoliberal policies of disinvestment of profitable-PSUs and financial liberalization.” He says the party now stands exposed. “Arguing on the lines that ‘we are opposed to the economic policies of government but we have no problems in supporting its Finance Minister as a Presidential candidate’ is nothing but sheer hypocrisy and doublespeak.” As for the whole argument of Bengali pride and not repeating the Jyoti-babu blunder, Bose is completely dismissive.

Despite the laments of the bourgeois commentators, the fact remains that the West Bengal electorate continued to deliver handsome victories for the CPI (M) and the Left Front in election after election, even after Jyoti Basu was not made the Prime Minister in 1996.

In fact, Bose thinks that by “cozying up to Congress” the party has just “handed over the anti-Centre plank to the TMC on a platter.” If Jyoti Basu was a “historic blunder”, then this decision says Bose is a “grave error.” His letter is being seen as a sort of last-ditch valiant effort against an increasingly autocratic higher echelon. But it’s also a symptom of the bigger struggle within the CPM – ideological purity versus political relevancy, old guard versus the young Turks. But the party mandarins have had the last word. Bose tried to resign from the party. But the party has instead expelled him. A senior leader told the Times of India that the expulsion sent the wrong signal. It showed the party bosses have thin skins and no appetite for democratic dissent. Moreover Bose had already written to quit from the party. So why make a drama of expelling him? You cannot hang a dead man, the senior leader said. Bose’s wife, Delhi State Committee member Albina Shakeel has also quit   reports  the Indian Express marking the end of the “next Prakash and Brinda Karat” power couple. This is not good news for the comrades but as family dramas go, this is 24 karat gold.