CPM needs big rethink, not just about Congress

The 57-31 CPI central committee vote in Kolkata on Sunday against an alliance with the Congress goes beyond the personality clash between party general secretary Sitaram Yechury and former general secretary Prakash Karat, though it is that as well. Neither the right-wing BJP under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah nor Rahul Gandhi’s left-central Congress, with his loyalist aides, allow for a free debate and vote within party forums. At a purely pragmatic level, the CPI faces the dilemma that it has no option but to fight the Congress in the states where it has dominance — Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura. The CPI’s bid to fight the BJP on the issue of economic liberalisation will be counter-productive as well, as it has found much to its discomfiture even in Kerala and West Bengal.