Hyderabad: The bitter faction feud within the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) seems to have come to an end with the 22nd Congress of the Party passing the political resolution keeping the option of an understanding with the Indian National Congress party.
However the resolution ruled out any electoral alliance with the party.
The question of the party’s relationship with the Congress — against the backdrop of the fight against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — had become the subject of a bitter tug of war between the group led by party general secretary Sitaram Yechuri and the group loyal to the former general secretary Prakah Karat.
In the end, Yechuri gained the upper hand when, at the end of the prolonged debate on the draft political resolution, the heads of as many as 16 state units demanded a secret ballot on various amendments.
Finally the two sides agreed on a middle path and some crucial amendments to the draft.
The most crucial amendment was to keep the doors open for an understanding with the Congress in future.
On the need for fighting and defeating the BJP, the original draft had said, “however this has to be done without having an understanding or electoral alliance with the Congress party”.
After the amendment was adopted, it reads, “But this has to be done without having a political alliance with the Congress”.
Another new clause to the resolution stated, “However there can be an understanding with all the secular opposition parties including the Congress in Parliament on agreed issues. Outside parliament we should cooperate with all secular opposition forces for a broad mobilisation of people against communalism. We should foster joint actions of class and mass organisations in such a manner that can draw in the masses following the Congress party and other bourgeois parties”.
After the political resolution was passed Sitaram Yechuri stressed the need for unity in the party.
“We are proud of the CPM,” he later told journalists. “It is the only party in India today which can undertake such a democratic exercise to decide its future direction. We are all agreed that our main fight is against the BJP/RSS and to defeat the government”.
Prakash Karat summing up the discussions on the resolution said that it was unprecedented that two views were put before the party Congress.
“The Central Committee decided that since this is a political issue it should be decided in the highest body of the party-the party Congress”, he said.
