Sitaram Yechury-led CPI(M) faces an uphill task of staying relevant

The ongoing five-day plenum of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Kolkata is its second crucial meet this year after the party congress in Visakhapatnam in April which elected Sitaram Yechury as the party's new general secretary. The plenum, coming just ahead of the key assembly polls next year in West Bengal - once a bastion of the CPI(M) - and at a time when the party is at its weakest electorally, is a critical opportunity for the party to rebuild its internal structures and correct organisational weaknesses.

It is important, therefore, that the party does not reduce this to merely a platform to launch its campaign in West Bengal for next year's election, emphasising too much on optics and shrill politics than on actually addressing organisational concerns that have weighed heavily on the party. The last plenum that the CPI(M) held was in 1978 in Salkia (West Bengal), from December 27-31.

The challenges before the party are many. The risk of becoming irrelevant at the national level, the inability to expand outside Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura, failure to attract the youth and a declining membership are just some of them.

In its Political Organisational Report presented at the party congress this year, the CPI(M) had pointed towards several organisational failures, including a “high percentage of droppage in membership”.

“The high percentage of droppage shows organisation weaknesses such as loose membership recruitment, inactivity of the party members and branches, low political-ideological level (sic), weaknesses in educating party member etc,” the report said, while also identifying an “ageing of party membership”, which it said, showed “young people are not coming forward to join the party”.

A big organisational concern for the party is its overly centralised structure. It is a feature which often leads to resentment in the lower rungs of this cadre-based party. Yechury, known for a more practical approach than his predecessor Prakash Karat, does recognise this problem but the party needs to adopt a more cohesive approach, to strike a balance between greater internal democracy and its traditional centralisation.

The CPI(M) now finds itself at a crucial juncture. If it fails to revive its fortunes in West Bengal, and more importantly, to expand its base to other parts of the country, it could be headed for irreversible irrelevance. However, for any sort of electoral and political course correction, it first needs to address its organisational weaknesses, and plan an internal revamp that would make it a party more in tune with the current political times, and more equipped to deal with the future.