The Communist Party of India-Marxist on Monday admitted that some element of "alienation" and "anger" worked behind its drubbing in the recent West Bengal polls. Senior politburo member Sitaram Yechury also did not rule out a change in the central leadership.
In an interview with Karan Thapar, Yechury said that the party is introspecting on what went wrong, but whether it would lead to a leadership change will be decided by the party's central committee, which meets in June.
He acknowledged that the withdrawal of Left support to United Progressive Alliance-I had caused "collateral damage", as it created a strong opposition alliance in Bengal.
When asked if someone should take responsibility for the recent poll performance which left the CPI-M with the lowest tally ever in Parliament and the assembly, Yechury said that it was a question of owning up responsibility for what went wrong.
He said that going by the party's record, issues are likely to be "resolved" rather than the central committee asking the present leadership to step aside. In Bengal, the CPI-M received 41 per cent of votes, which is more than what the governments in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh or Bihar have, Yechury said.
Yechury admitted that most of the new voters in Bengal voted for the Trinamool Congress. "In a democracy there needs to be a change, this slogan of change became attractive for them because they have never seen a change and wanted to see an alternative," the senior politburo member said.
He said the handling of land acquisition in Singur was done without proper "homework". After the huge victory in 2006 on the plank of industrialisation, the CPI-M and the government in Bengal presumed that people were in sync with the Left's understanding on the issue, he said.
Yechury accepted that the Left's breakup with UPA-I on the issue of Indo-US nuclear deal led to an alliance between the Congress and Trinamool, which made a strong opposition. "This in international parlance is called collateral damage. There was no option for us but to withdraw support, but that created this united opposition," he said.
On the image of an "arrogant cadre" in Bengal, Yechury said, "By the time you evaluate whether some person is fulfilling his commitment to serve people or using wrong methods and take action, some damage is already done. That is a real problem."
Speaking of the handling of the candidature of V S Achuthanandan in Kerala, Yechury acknowledged that the internal state confabulations on the party list in the media were "unfortunate and created a lot of confusion".
