MCC faction befriends CPI-ML

Two days later, more than 200-odd MCC activists claimed to represent the RCC at a closed-door meeting with their erstwhile rivals belonging to the CPI-ML (Party Unity) and the CPI-ML (Liberation) in Patna. At this meeting, these left ultras reportedly recognised the RCC as the original MCC and resolved to cooperate with each other in future.

The leader of the breakaway faction is a widow, Nirmala. Her husband, Sagar Chatterjee, was killed by the police in an “encounter” in Gaya district in 1992. She is a committed Naxalite and has an impressive following inthe party, a senior police officer said.

Chotanagpur IG J.K.Sinha believes the split in the MCC was inevitable. There have been dissensions among its cadre for long. Now these are coming out into the open, Sinha said in an interview to The Indian Express.

A product of the Naxalbari movement in West Bengal in 1967, the prominent ideologues of the MCC were Amulya Sen and Kanai Chatterjee. Their party, which stood for the cause of the landless segments of the society, expanded its network to this State in 1973 from Aurangabad district to Gaya, Chatra, Nawada, Jehanabad, Rohtas and Palamau. In Dhanbad, Bokaro and Giridih, they are known as the Lalkhandis.

Responsible for many carnages, including Baghura-Dalalchak (1987), Barah (1992) etc., it was banned by the State Government in 1990.

Today, the MCC is headless, claim the police. One of its heavyweights, Vijay Kumar Arya, is a well-known figure. He is on record having canvassed for votes with the former Bihar chief minister Laloo Prasad Yadav during the1991 Assembly polls in Gaya. The Naxalites have never approved of electoral politics.

In MCC’s area of influence, Yadavs, Koeris and Paswans are dominant castes. Arya is believed to have retained the support of a dominant section of the Yadav activists of the MCC. The rest are reported to have either joined the RCC or are in the process of leaving it.

Indiscipline, group rivalry, lust for money and politicisation of the party are cited as main factors responsible for the split.