Breather for Karat as CPM completes soul-searching

More than two years after the CPM withdrew support to the UPA,the party has found fault with the central leaderships handling...

More than two years after the CPM withdrew support to the UPA,the party has found fault with the central leaderships handling of the nuclear deal crisis,virtually putting Prakash Karat and the top brass in the dock. But Karat can breath easy as his line of staunch anti-Congressism has prevailed as far as the immediate future strategy is concerned.

At the end of three-day Central Committee meeting of the CPM,it was kind of a win-win situation for Karat and his critics in the party. As far as the post-mortem of the reasons that led to the rout in Lok Sabha poll was concerned,the party felt that the mis-handling of the nuclear deal standoff with the UPA by the central leadership contributed to its image taking a beating.

The Central Committee was said to be of the view that Karat and the Politburo erred in allowing the UPA I to go to the IAEA for the safeguards agreement. Besides,the leadership overestimated its strength to block the deal and underestimated and mis-judged the Congresss political manoeuvering abilities which resulted in the Manmohan Singh government not only signing the deal but also managing to survive with the help of parties like the SP.

Sources said many members pointed out that the bosses in Delhi had wrongly concluded that the deal was dead on the assumption that withdrawal of support would plunge the government into a minority and no minority government can take forward such an international agreement.

The leadership clearly could not judge the situation,a senior leader told The Indian Express. The third front,foisted on the eve of elections,was a misadventure as it lacked credibility and only helped the Congress corner the anti-BJP votes.

Sources said a view in the central committee was that the timing of the withdrawal could have been earlier as such a move could have put the Congress off guard. Here Karat escapes the wrath as sources said the snapping of ties was delayed at the instance of the Bengal unit which wanted the panchayat elections in the state to get over first.

As for the immediate future strategy,the draft political resolution adopted by the central committee makes it clear that the party should oppose the Congress,the prime mover of the neo-liberal policies of the UPA government which also favours a pro-US foreign policy.

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No political understanding with the Congress has been the line pushed hard by Karat although the Bengal unit was not entirely happy with the policy.

The central committee also decided to halt attempts for cobbling a Third Front as of now. The party,however,kept the doors open for electoral understandings with non-Congres,non-BJP parties at the state level.