Elections 2016 have exposed splits and hypocrisies in CPI(M)

The contrasting results of the Assembly elections in West Bengal and Kerala have once again brought into the open the fault lines that exist within the CPI(M) on the question of its relationship with the Congress at the Centre. The party's audacious gamble of tying up with the old enemy in West Bengal, has blown up in its face, and threatens to pit the Kerela and West Bengal units against each other.

The West Bengal gamble, struck primarily to avert an electoral washout, has now turned out be an embarrassment for the party. The Congress seems to have benefited more from the alliance, winning 44 seats while the CPI(M) won only 26, CPI one, Forward Bloc two and RSP three, prompting the hardliners to question the wisdom of the decision and call for reverting to the original line of equidistance favoured by Prakash Karat and his supporters.

The issue will be debated vigorously at the next Politbureau meeting of the party and the under fire party general secretary Sitaram Yechury has promised an honest appraisal of the reasons for the defeat in West Bengal. Though a final call on the strategy or the party line to be adopted at the Centre, on whether or not to have a tie-up with the Congress at the Centre will be decided by the Politbureau, but post the debacle in West Bengal and the victory in Kerela, Karat's hard line against both the Congress and BJP is likely to prevail for now.

Also read: Elections 2016 prove India is a fragile State

It's a well known fact that the Kerala line has always been in favour of maintaining equidistance from both the Congress and the BJP at the Centre, while the West Bengal unit of the party has favoured working closely with the Congress in order to take on the BJP.

In both the states, the Left and the Congress have a long history of being bitter rivals. It is for the first time that the two parties reached an electoral understanding in West Bengal in the hope of averting a rout. The emergence of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal and the manner in which the CPI(M) was routed in the state even in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections prompted a section within the party to favour an electoral understanding with the Congress.

In Kerela however, the situation is different. Both the Congress and the CPI(M) have been fierce contenders for power in the state and the West Bengal experiment is viewed as a dilution of the party's position of going it alone at the Centre. The equidistant line was first allowed to blur when CPI(M) veteran Harkishan Singh Surjeet was the general secretary of the party, and then again after the 2004 Lok Sabha elections when Left parties, including the CPI(M), supported the Manmohan Singh-led UPA 1 government.

The two contrasting positions in the party took on an added hue this time on account of the personalities involved. It pitted Karat the former general secretary of the party and his successor Yechury against each other. The former was seen as the driving force behind the Kerala line of no truck with both the BJP and Congress. Yechury and the comrades from West Bengal were of the view that the BJP was the bigger enemy, hence if necessary the party should forge a short-term understanding with "like-minded secular parties to defeat the BJP".

Fearing an electoral rout if it contested on their own, the West Bengal unit of the CPI(M) put pressure on Yechury to use his rapport with the Congress leadership to work out an electoral arrangement. The arrangement was a gamble that backfired big time. The Left's electoral understanding with the Congress was unprecedented. It invited charges of political opportunism and of "an ideological compromise" and marked a huge departure from the political line of the party.