Perception of a party and its government not adhering to the basic tenet of pro-people policies and programmes had played a significant role in the erosion of the support base for the CPI(M) in 2011, but what really crippled it and pushed it on the periphery was the personal feud between the top leaders of the party. The supporters of the then general secretary Prakash Karat had, in fact, robbed the party of its Marxist shine. The manner in which they indulged in bashing of Bengal party leadership and accused the erstwhile LDF government made them look like villains.

A fresh round of evaluation of the role of leadership has begun within he party. This has become more intense after the recent inner fight on the issue of party having some kind of relation with the Congress. While Karat continues to stick to his stand of maintaining equidistance from the Congress and BJP, the followers of Sitaram Yechury hold the view that in the existing situation the saffron fascism was a bigger threat and to fight it the party may seek the help of other democratic and secular forces. There is a growing feeling that Karat was pursuing an isolationist line.

This fight has convinced the rank and file that the party was no more committed to Marxist ideology. What complicated the situation was the lifestyle of most of the young leaders in .the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha who have become arrogant and are acting like puppets of their top leaders. They do not feel the pulse of the people.

As a result of this, a large number of workers and cadres have deserted the party or turned inactive. According to party leaders, more than 1 lakh ground level cadres had withdrawn from active work in 2011, failing to renew their membership. While they were disillusioned, they were also scared of violent reprisal by the Trinamool Congress workers. Incidentally, most of the criminals and goons, who supported the CPI(M), were the first to shift their loyalty to TMC.

Now in the changed situation, the arduous task of winning back the trust of the cadres who had left the party seven years back has fallen upon Surya Kanta Mishra, the state secretary. The CPI(M) has launched a “mass contact” programme from October 22 to November 3 to bring back the cadres and leaders to the party fold. The target is to reach 77,000 booths spread over 40,000 villages for the panchayat polls in rural Bengal that are only months away and whose results will influence the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The Mamata Banerjee government has a budgetary outlay of Rs 1,82,297 crore for the panchayat department in 2017-18.

Mishra has urged Left activists to mobilise opinion against both Trinamool and BJP based on the popular democratic demands. Though the state leaders feel that even at this stage the party could be resurrected, for this to happen they hold that Karat and his supporters must refrain from raising the issue of relations with Congress and other secular and democratic forces. They blame Karat for the present plight of the party.

A section of these leaders feels that this line by Karat will eventually push the party towards complete political isolation while the BJP would rise as a religious divide has started to emerge. They argue that Karat must adopt a pragmatic view and not force the leadership to follow his line as it has weakened the organization. While he was the general secretary he ought to have launched a movement against globalisation and liberalisation. But instead the party surrendered its political will. The fact remains that the Left has lost ground faster than anyone had anticipated. Villages which enjoyed the benefits of the Operation Barga (land reforms) programme of the Left Front government in the 70s have made a U turn. The leadership instead of analyzing the reasons was indulging in futile polemics of the relevance of Congress and Left’s relation with it.

The Central leadership failed to activate the All India Kishan Sabha, once the strongest frontal organization and the country’s largest peasant front with 1.5 crore enrolled members. It has now shrunk to less than half. The number of the party’s full-timers is down from about 3,600 to less than 2,000. It is interesting to note that mostly the supporters of the CPI(M) at the village level have switched allegiance to the BJP. The number of RSS sakhas in Bengal has gone up from 475 to 1,680. Last year in October the state committee of the party had decided to remove nearly 30% of inactive party card holders. Though most of them have been removed, sources however reveal that a fresh move has been initiated to contact them. There is a feeling in the party that these people must not be given the opportunity to join TMC or BJP. The CPI (M) has over 2.65 lakh members in West Bengal.

Surya Kanta Mishra admitted that many of the party’s supporters did not vote for the Left. He even refused to share the view of the leaders close to Karat that the electoral “understanding” between the Congress and the CPI(M) had ostensibly failed.

As usual the decline of the party has further deepened the existential crisis for the party. This is being related to the lifestyle of the leaders, especially the younger lot, making it explicit that degeneration had crept into the party long back. The inactivity of the cadres at the ground level reflected this trend. They cite the example of Rajya Sabha MP Ritabrata Banerjee who was suspended from the party for three months over his "lavish lifestyle". A senior Marxist leader quipped,” these leaders possess a typical bourgeoisie approach. They are not the products of mass struggles or movements. Besides participating in one or two rallies on the roads of Calcutta, these leaders do not have any thing substantial to their credit. But unfortunately they have been promoted as the creators of the destiny of the people”.

The top leadership must admit their failure for creating such a band of leaders, who are not capable of checking the surge of the RSS and the BJP. Instead of looking inwards and analyzing their own weaknesses and failures, they simply blame Mamata Banerjee for their rout. Marxist veterans concede that their party is facing the worst crisis of credibility and loss of public faith. After the August meet of the central committee in Kolkata even Yechury confessed that ‘internal fight’’ was plaguing the CPI(M). After allowing indiscipline among its senior cadre, the CPI(M) in Bengal is losing its reputation of integrity. (IPA Service)