The CPI(M) on Tuesday ruled out getting into any alliance or united front with the Congress while vowing to “isolate and defeat” the BJP.“The party differentiates between the BJP and the Congress, considering the latter as a secular bourgeois party, though it vacillates when the communal forces take the offensive. The party will continue to adopt tactics for isolating and defeating the BJP. It will not enter into any alliance or united front with the Congress,” the political resolution adopted at the CPM’s 19th party Congress here said.Briefing the media, CPI(M) Politburo member S Ramachandran Pillai said the tactical line will remain that the CPI(M) would only offer support and not get into any alliance in any state led by any regional party, of which the Congress is a part. “The alliances and understanding with regional parties are only to take care of certain electoral tasks,” Pillai added.Obviously concerned about a 7.73 percent attrition rate among its members since the last party Congress, and its continuing failure to make any serious headway in states other than Kerala, Bengal, Tripura, Tamil Nadu and Andhra, the political resolution prescribed priority to “developing the party’s independent strength and expanding its political base”, by taking up “class and mass struggles to develop movements and struggles”.The political organisation report still being discussed says the party’s membership attrition rate is now as high as 10.62 per cent in Kerala — where CPM has the largest strength with 3,36,644 out of its total 9,82,155 members. Besides, the party has been losing more than one out of every four new candidate members that it gets in Kerala before they turn full-fledged members, reflecting on a mere 6.43 per cent growth in Kerala while the party’s national growth rate was 13.18 per cent.Pillai, however, maintained that the attrition rate may have to do with “many factors, like members not paying up the party levy on income or becoming inactive,” but added that the leadership would also look at organisational reasons, if any, for such an attrition rate.The party Congress has also been apprised that close to 54 per cent of party members nationwide are in the 40-plus age group, while close to 12 per cent are women. Though the membership strength in CPI(M)’s trade unions and other outfits grew by over 25 per cent, the report said categorically that very little of the growth went beyond Kerala, Bengal, Tripura, Tamil Nadu and Andhra.The other points in the political resolution that was adopted included that the CPI(M) should take the initiative to form relationships with “all non-Congress secular parties” for “struggles on common issues” that would help build the third alternative, and evolving a “clear perspective for building movements on the platforms of Left and Democratic forces”.Pillai said the party was in the process of talking to regional parties with which it has good relations like the DMK in Tamil Nadu, TDP in Andhra Pradesh, the SP and the RJD to begin efforts to have the third alternative in place.
