KOLKATA: In an explosive and unprecedented speech, West Bengal CPM secretary Surjyakanta Mishra targeted the politburo for the debacle in the Assembly polls at the two-day state committee meeting, which ended on Sunday.
In the presence of six politburo members, including party general secretary Sitaram Yechury, Mishra attacked the body for not offering any support for the alliance with the Congress a month before the elections.
“The PB gave contradictory statements. This alliance failed during the elections. I am ready to take the responsibility for it and willing to be punished,” said Mishra, who is also a politburo member.
Severely criticising top CPM leaders for not campaigning along with Congress leaders in spite of the alliance, he said, “When state Congress president Adhir Chowdhury was addressing an election meeting at Singur, our general secretary spent time at a tea shop to avoid sharing the dais. Is any alliance possible this way?”
Karat under fire
Though Mishra mentioned Yechury, his real target was former general secretary Prakash Karat who was all along against any alliance with the Congress and has the support of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Kodiyari Balakrishnan, Brinda Karat and S Ramachandran Pillai in the politburo.
CPM Nadia district secretary Sumit De also targeted the Karat couple and said, “Just because a Congress leader was on the dais, politburo member Brinda Karat refused to get on the dais. This way no alliance would work.”
A majority of the members from 18 out of 20 district committees supported the alliance with the Congress and demanded the alliance should continue to combat the “terror” being unleashed by the ruling Trinamool Congress. Yechury too fuelled speculation as he remarked outside the meeting, “Our aim is to have the broadest possible political unity.”