VISAKHAPATNAM: Reviving the party in West Bengal could be the single most crucial issue before the CPM and its Party Congress.
There have been digs about the “wounded Bengal tiger” from even smaller units. But while the crucial Municipal elections in West Bengal were going on today--where the CPM has been accusing the ruling TMC of not only rigging and booth--capturing but outright physical assault on its opponents--the Bengal leadership were busy closeted behind closed doors in far away Vizag.
They were reduced to adopting resolutions blaming CM Mamata Banerjee of using “hooligans” to “control the entire process”. The party’s new West Bengal chief, Suryakanta Mishra, chose to call it “a bloody battle”, lamenting, “We are physically here in Vishakhapatnam but our heart is in Bengal”.