With Prakash Karat’s tenure as CPI(M) general secretary drawing to a close, his differences with party senior Sitaram Yechury has become more pronounced than ever before.
Yechury, said party insiders, wants the general secretary’s post for himself, an ambition Karat is desperate to thwart.
According to a senior party leader, Yechury, who had “tasted” power during the heydays of UPA I as the parliamentary face of the CPI(M), is yet to get over it and wants a similar arrangement with the Congress. While Karat is yet to recover from the shock he suffered from the way he was shown the place by Congress president Sonia Gandhi whom he had trusted blindly.
The CPI(M) had withdrawn its support to UPA I in 2008 over the Indo-US nuclear deal and Karat had played a crucial role in the withdrawal.
“Unlike the previous generation leaders, both are placing greater leverage on their personal likes and dislikes over ideology,” said a party leader.
He said the two had expressed their differences in the previous election time too. “But then it was limited to their writings in the People’s Democracy, the party’s mouth piece. Now it is out in the open,” he said, pointing out two articles written by Yechury and Karat where their differences on the Third Front were expressed in a subtle way.
But according to another leader, there is more to the rivalry than just relations with the Congress party. “The fact that Karat’s term as general secretary is coming to an end has heated up the internal rivalry. Yechury should be the natural choice after Karat for the post of general secretary. But the Karat group is determined to scuttle his chances and wants either Brinda Karat or S Ramachandran Pillai to take over. Being aware of this gameplan, Yechury will do everything possible to stop Karat from becoming a national player in politics,” he said. According to him, the success of Third Front means an end to the political ambitions of Yechury and Yechury is “too smart” to let that happen.
Interestingly, the two strongholds of the party—West Bengal and Kerala—are also divided along these lines. While the Kerala party, which has 44 MLAs, is solidly behind Karat, the Bengal party has no love lost for Karat as he is seen as “the one who stopped a Bengali from becoming the PM.” West Bengal has 61 MLAs.
“Though Yechury is equally responsible for this decision of stopping Jyoti Basu, he played his cards cleverly, especially at the time of Basu’s death, that all the blame fell squarely upon Karat,” said a party source.
Similarly, the Bengal party is yet to forgive Karat for expelling former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee from the party during the Indo-US nuclear deal issue.
While the Bengal party is all for a tactical alliance with the Congress as Mamata Bannerje is their enemy number one, the Kerala party is strongly against this as Congress is the main opponent in the state. “Some clarity regarding the political line will be clear only after the next meet of the Central Committee—the highest decision making body of the party with a strength of 86 members. Though it is scheduled for December, it is all likely that it may be held earlier as the fight is now out in open,” said the leader.