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CPI, CPI-M thrash out differences in public

Arup Chanda in Calcutta

Fissures are evident within the Left Front in West Bengal which has been continuously ruling the state for 22 years. The Front's two main constituents, the Communist Party of India-Marxist and the Communist Party of India, are engaged in a verbal duel, hurling accusations at one another.

It all started when West Bengal Home Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya openly criticised the CPI at a public meeting at Siliguri in Darjeeling district last week. He asked the CPI to either dissociate itself from the pro-Gorkhaland United Front in Darjeeling or quit the Left Front.

Bhattacharya said, "If the CPI is at all a Left party it should openly come out with a written statement declaring that it is quitting the United Front".

The CPI was quick enough to react. Manju Majumdar, CPI state secretary said, "Such irresponsible statements not only cross decency limits but also expose an arrogance which can only harm Left unity." In an obvious reference to the minister, he said no one had the authority to order around other Left Front partners.

The pro-Gorkhaland United Front in Darjeeling is an eight-party combine led by the Communist Party of Revolutionary Marxists, which was formed after some CPI-M leaders broke away on the issue of a separate state of Gorkhaland. It is a fact that some CPI leaders in Darjeeling district are involved with this front.

West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu was unhappy with the CPI's proximity to the UF and had asked Left Front chairman Sailen Dasgupta to take up the issue with the CPI.

Bhattacharya, who is also a CPI-M central committee member, looks after the party's organisation in Darjeeling district, had always been a severe critic of pro-Gorkhaland forces. Irked by reports of the CPI's closeness to the UF he could not restrain himself and lashed out against the party.

The CPI could not tolerate the "big brother" attitude of the CPI-M and hit back saying, "No person or party is powerful enough to kick the other out and the CPI-M is not in a position to survive alone."

Differences do exist between the two partners. The CPI favours granting of more autonomy and power to the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council and points out that the CPI-M had fallen back on its promises on this issue.

"This does not mean we are siding with the Gorkha National Liberation Front of Subhash Ghising," Majumdar said.

Incidentally, the undivided Communist Party of India in the early '50s had passed resolutions supporting the creation of a separate state for the Nepali-speaking people in north Bengal.

The CPI split in 1962 and two years later the CPI-M was born. Its leaders too did not change their stand on the issue. Little did they know that they will romp into power in West Bengal after 13 years and have to deal with the problem of a demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland.

Though both the parties have locked horns over "Gorkhaland" publicly, the bone of contention is different. Reports that a large number of members of the CPI-M-affiliated trade union, Centre for Indian Trade Unions, are switching their loyalties in favour of the CPI-affiliated All India Trade Union Congress had angered the CPI-M leadership. Since then, the CPI-M began attacking the Darjeeling unit of the CPI.

Things cooled down a little after CPI-M state secretary, Anil Biswas, took up the issue with Majumdar and tried to pacify him by saying that Bhattacharya had been "misquoted by the press", the usual ploy to cover faux pas by politicians.

However, for the CPI the humiliation heaped on it by its "big brother" was too hard to digest.

The CPI was not part of the Left Front when it was formed in 1977 and it came to power in West Bengal. The CPI, which was earlier an ally of the Congress, was wiped out in this state in the 1977 polls. It joined the Left Front only in 1982. As such, the CPI-M regards the party as an "interloper" and reference about inclusion in the Left Front is a touchy issue for the CPI.

Within a week, the former Union home minister and CPI MP, Indrajit Gupta, lashed out at the CPI-M. He did not mince words and asked rhetorically at a rally of labourers in the unorganised sector, "What are the chief minister, the labour minister and the labour commissioner doing for the labourers of the unorganised sector?"

And he replied himself, "They are doing nothing other than devouring their salaries."

Gupta thundered, "Has Basu forgotten that he shot into prominence as a labour leader and that Left Front was formed to look after the interests of the deprived and the neglected class?"

"We have not been able to exert enough pressure to counter the influence of the Birlas, the Tatas and the Goenkas on the ministers and bureaucrats."

Such accusations from a leader of Gupta's stature came as a bolt from the blue for the state CPI-M leadership and it was dumbfounded.

The party never thought the CPI would directly attack Basu, and refer to the recent bonhomie between CPI-M ministers and industrialists at the recent summit at Raichak on January 17.

However, other than describing it as "unfortunate" the CPI-M decided to keep quiet. It realised that continuing the verbal duel might expose many chinks in its armour and in the end it might turn out to be a loser. After all, the CPI-M's stakes in West Bengal are far bigger than the CPI.

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