The CPM rally in Kolkata on Sunday was to be a show of strength ahead of the party’s first organisational plenum in 37 years. The party congress earlier this year in Visakhapatnam had announced the plenum to discuss flaws in the organisation, suggest a revamp and revise tactics. The disastrous performance in the West Bengal assembly election in 2011 and the rout in the 2014 general election had forced the CPM leadership to acknowledge that the party was facing an existential crisis. However, Sunday’s rally turned out to be more about the upcoming West Bengal election than organisational matters. An alliance with the Congress and the party’s approach to West Bengal’s industrialisation, two issues officially outside the pale of the plenum, came alive as senior party leaders targeted the Trinamool Congress and the BJP. Its silence on the Congress, on the other hand, eloquently announced the CPM’s ambivalence on that party.
The CPM had gone silent on its industrialisation agenda ever since the Nano car project at Singur and a proposal for a chemical hub at Nandigram faced massive popular protests and resulted in large-scale violence. While the Nano project moved to Gujarat, Singur and Nandigram triggered an exodus from the CPM. By all accounts, the party now appears to be preparing to reclaim its pro-industry plank and present it as the way forward to create jobs in West Bengal. CPM state secretary Surya Kantha Mishra, perhaps enthused by the large youth presence at the rally, even announced that the party would start factories in Singur and elsewhere, and create jobs for “lakhs of people”. West Bengal, no doubt, needs large industrial investments to absorb the surplus labour that the farming sector and small-scale industry cannot accommodate. The Left Front government’s industrial policy recognised the necessity for the state to broadbase its economy and scale up its industrial base. Where it went wrong, however, was in the way it went about pushing the industrialisation agenda: The party tripped not because of policy but due to its failure in managing the transition. For instance, local CPM functionaries led the move to acquire land for industry in Singur by force. Little attempt was made to engage with and persuade those unwilling to move out of agriculture. The party needs to admit that the conduct of its leadership alienated voters.
