NEW DELHI, July 18: The CPM appears to have clinched its political strategy of adopting a softer line towards the Congress while waiting out the fall of the BJP government and shoring up an emerging secular front. In a definite shift away from the policy of "equidistance from the twin enemies" the Congress and the BJP, the party's central committee has decided to train their guns more aggressively on the BJP, but not going so far as to actively precipitate the fall of the BJP-led government."The government will collapse from the strains and pulls from its 19-odd alliance partners," party sources said, indicating that the party would adopt a wait and watch attitude and formulate its strategy as the situation develops.
The CPM's central committee concluded its three-day deliberations today to finalise the draft political resolution to be placed before the upcoming party congress to be held in Calcutta in October.
The fundamental change in the Indian polity with the emergence of the BJP as the largestsingle party after the 1998 elections and the dangers of the BJP consolidating its base, called for a reassessment of the CPM's strategy. Equally alarming to the Left is the erosion of the Congress' support base with most of the gains having accrued to the BJP.
West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu stirred a hornet's nest last month when he said the CPM would be willing to support a Congress-led government at the Centre. Basu's statement upset not just sections of the CPM, especially the West Bengal and Kerala units which have been engaged in decades-old murderous street battles with the Congress, but also the party's Left Front partners like the Forward Bloc and RSP.
They felt such a major change in the stance of CPM should have been done only after the party leadership had met and the Left Front's leading party had had consultations with its partners.
Party leaders maintain that there has been no "major shift" towards the Congress, since the CPM had extended "issue-based" support to the P V NarasimhaRao government too. The nuanced change is one of emphasis, with the BJP being viewed as the principal threat.
Though party leaders still maintain that it is too early yet to come out openly in support of the Congress, and such a position is warranted only when the situation arises, there is a recognition that the bourgeois Congress party is a "lesser evil" when compared to the BJP and its fundamentalist allies like the RSS, VHP and the Shiv Sena.
Quite apart from selling the party "line" to the rank and file of the CPM cadres in West Bengal and Kerala, there would also be the more fundamental issue of differences over the Congress' economic agenda. In the event of the Congress being in a position to form a government, the CPM would extract some assurances on rolling back some of what it refers to as "disastrous" economic decisions sanctioned by the Congress.
The draft political resolution is to be circulated to all party units and will be discussed in the respective state committee meetings before beingadopted with possible amendments at the party congress beginning on October 5.
The CPM's softer line towards the Congress dovetails the CPI's draft political resolution adopted last week which calls for support to a future Congress-led government being conditional to the Congress changing tack on its economic agenda, ending its tolerance of high-levels of corruption and discarding its ambiguity towards "communal forces".
The efforts of the two parties would also be primed at buttressing the efforts of all secular forces to form "third alternative", including the recently-formed Rashtriya Loktantrik Dal.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
