CPM committee deliberates on formulating a ‘comeback plan’
Reports have been submitted to the top leaders ahead of submission to Politburo.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has completed its deliberations on three issues it considers to be important in allowing it to make a comeback. Committees formed by the party to discuss the agrarian classes, especially the impact of globalisation on it, working classes and the urban middle classes have finished their work and submitted their reports.
“The reports have been submitted to the top leadership though they are yet to be distributed to the Politburo,” said a source. “These committees are not aimed merely to overcome electoral losses but have a wider scope,” said another source.
In its party manifesto released before the Lok Sabha elections earlier this year, the CPM had stated that the party was for the reversal of the “current thrust to dilute land-ceiling laws”. Demanding “speedy and comprehensive steps for implementing land reforms”, it had reiterated the need for the “takeover and distribution of all surplus land above ceiling and handing over of cultivable wasteland to landless and poor peasant households free of cost, with priority to SCs and STs.” It is understood that these topics were discussed during the sittings of the committee deliberating the issues related to the agrarian classes.
The committee on agriculture consisted of two academics, sources said, including leaders belonging to the party’s farmers’ wing, All India Kisan Sabha and All India Agricultural Workers Union. All the three groups had academics on them, sources added. The reports submitted by the committee will be studied by the Politburo in order to come to an understanding of the political situation prevailing in the country and to decide upon a future course of action. The new course of action is likely to be decided at the next party Congress scheduled for next year which will be followed by a plenum.
Apart from intellectual exercises, the party is also trying to wrest lost ground politically. The West Bengal unit of the All India Kisan Sabha of the party has recently managed to visit 33,000 villages in the state, out of the total 38,000 villages, spending time there in order to register their presence. The party is left with only two Lok Sabha members from the state, which it ruled till recently. The BJP has been making strong inroads into the state and the CPM exercise is to keep it at bay as well.