CPM in Delhi, Bengal: No striking balance on strike

The CPI(M)’s Politburo began its crucial meeting this morning. Yes, it did take up topical issues like the right to strike, the proposed Patents’ Amendment Bill, the Employment Guarantee Act. But more importantly it began discussion on the outlines of the draft resolution which would be accepted finally at the party congress in April next year. The resolution will be readied and forwarded to the Central Committee, which would meet in Kolkata next month.

The resolution will reflect the evolving political and economic approaches of the CPI(M). For a party with strong ideological moorings like the CPI(M), changes are hardly ever dramatic. It is the nuances and subtleties which are read between the lines and interpreted.

Moreover, the 2005 congress of the Left has assumed even more significance especially after the BJP was somewhat unexpectedly edged out by the secular parties at the last general elections. The CPI(M) is expected to record the changes the party is already experiencing or expects to experience.

Though the BJP remains its principal opponent, the CPI(M) has serious divergences with Congress on issues beyond economic thinking.

The party is already feeling buoyant having registered its best ever electoral performance. It wants to strategise much better. And the party congress comes at a time when it wants to showcase its sheer doggedness and will to survive over the past 40 years since it became a separate political entity after splitting from the parent CPI.

This morning CITU chief M.K. Pandhe and Sitaram Yechury, said there were no differences with Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and his colleagues on strikes. Pandhe demanded an amendment to the Industrial Disputes Act to allow government workers the powers to enjoy the right. Yechury said they would ask the government to legislate if necessary.