Declaring Congress CPM's biggest political enemy, general secretary Prakash Karat has said that the party would forge bigger opposition coordination and organise mass rallies against the “neo-liberal economic policies of the Union government”.

This statement was given in Kolkata, and it was obviously targeted towards the potentially highly damaging alliance of the Trinmool Congress and the INC that has put the left politics in West Bengal in duress. That is why emphasis was given on the “neo-liberal economic policies of the Union government” that is run by the Congress led UPA with Mamata Banerjee's Trimool Congress as an alliance partner. There is a very high stake of the Left alliance in general and CPM in particular in West Bengal.

To face the challenges ahead, the CPM is concentrating on to convince the people the biggest threat to people now are the neo-liberal economic policies of the Union government. To counter that threat the party leadership has assigned itself the 'prime task' which is to organise coordination of 'all political forces' that are against such anti-people economic policies and organise a mass movement.

Some political alternative will surely evolve out of this mass movement in future, hopes Prakash Karat, however, he has categorically denied that he was talking about the 'third alternative'.

“Now, there are two big national level political forces which are representatives of big bourgeoisie and landlords. One is Congress and the other, BJP. The only difference is BJP is a declared communal force and Congress an officially secular force. But the requirement of united front politics is to mobilise people against the Congress-led UPA government's neo-liberal economic issues,” Karat has said.

A section of CPM leaders and cadres in West Bengal do love to draw a distinction between the Congress and its ally Trinamool Congress as local electoral tactics. However, this distiction may harm the electoral prospect of the Left. Party insiders say that a section of the party's Bengal leadership still believe that a political understanding with the Congress can make the party more relevant at the national level.

CPM leadership is aware with this situation and working out a new strategy to suceessfully counter the new challenges and to get “support from Left-minded sections beyond the Front”. Obviously, the leadership wants the support of all those people who are anti-Congress or who are against any other political force that allies with the Congress.

The Left is aware of the alienation of certain sections of the people from the left. Even Mr Karat has admitted in a party meeing in Kolkata recently that “there has been an alienation between the two sections in recent times… our enemies have successfully driven a wedge between peasants and workers — who form the bedrock of such united struggles. We have had some shortcomings while running the Left Front government in West Bengal in the last 33 years. We should learn from our mistakes'.

The Third Front experiment has miserably failed. That is why the CPM leadership presently stressing on “independent initiative by the Left to build united movements and strive to float a political alternative with the Left as the binding force.”

Left could never become a binding force, not even in 1998, the year that marked the rising of the “communal BJP” in power at the Centre. They decided to keep the BJP at bay and supported the Congress to form UPA-I in 2004. They later withdrew their support but the government survived. In class terms, there is no question of allinace - neither with the Congress, nor with the BJP - thogh the left takes support from both for its strategic initiatives, despite oppositions within and criticism from outside. CPM got chance to rule the country under the leadership of Jyoti Basu as Prime Minister, but they committed 'historical blunder', and now the leadership has got splited on withdrawing support from the UPA-I acknowledging that a mistake.

The political confusion within and without the CPM in particular and the Lelf in general along with the problems of development in West Bengal has given chance to other political parties and people to criticize the Left and the Left is not in a position to successfully counter attack.
“Now we are realising at the all-India level that unless we do not have independent strength, we cannot have a real political alliance,” said Karat recently in Kolkata. “Except in Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura, it is very difficult to go for counter attack.”

West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and party state secretary Biman Bose have been quoted in media saying withdrawal of support from UPA-I government was incorrect decision, which speaks of the perceived isolation of the Left from the national political scenario in which even small regional political parties are more interested in National polititical parties, not in the Left.

The Left Front in West Bengal is the strongest base for the Left in the country and therefore it has the highest ever stake in the Legislative Assembly elections in the state next year.