CPM to practise what it preaches

Now Delhi and West Bengal CPI(M) don’t want to speak in different voices. Realizing that the party is often faced with embarassing ques...

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Now Delhi and West Bengal CPI(M) don’t want to speak in different voices. Realizing that the party is often faced with embarassing questions over different approaches to key ideological issues, the CPI(M) leadership is preparing a single political guideline for decision-making at both levels.

‘‘The document once ready will help clear some of the misunderstandings,’’ said Prakash Karat, senior Politburo member of the CPI(M). He explained that the political organization report of the party has been divided into two parts and one part would focus essentially on removing these perceived differences in standpoints in differnt states.

Accusations had been levelled against the party that it did not practise in West Bengal what it preached in Delhi. In Kerala, these differences in ideological perception created rifts between the Pinarayi Vijayan and the V.S. Achuthanandan factions.

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On various economic issues — Karat cited the example of foreign direct investment specifically — the document will help clear misconceptions among cadres and even some of the senior functionaries of the party. ‘‘It will help clear a lot of confusion on certain key policy issues,’’ he said.

For the party, it will help bridge the huge gap in attitude that exist between West Bengal (where the party is in power) and Kerala (where the party is in Opposition). In Kerala, the CPI(M) has felt it politically feasible to stay closer to a tougher line. In West Bengal, on the other hand, it has been desperate to marry theory to the compulsions of running a government.

This is the first time that such a document has been conceived at a party congress. Karat has insisted in the past that the differences do not exist and misconceptions have arisen because of rather simplistic analyses of issues like FDI.