The most flexible and inclusive leader of India’s largest Communist Party was Sitaram Yechury, who passed away recently. It is a coincidence that the most disintegration took place in the Left Front when the most inclusive leader Yechury was the CPM General Secretary. It is one thing that the party was completely marginalized from West Bengal to Tripura and Kerala, but along with it the front of the Left parties also got disintegrated. Whether Yechury could not take everyone along or the front got scattered due to weakness is a matter of analysis, but now the news is that CPM is trying to bring all the left parties together. Its efforts are about to begin. There will be a party congress of CPM in April next year, in which the new general secretary will be elected. Before that, the agenda and political proposal of the party congress is being prepared, in which the issues of left unity will be prominently included. In fact, in the last few years, all parties have not had the same opinion on any issue. Except Israel’s attack on Palestine, there was no shared opinion on any issue.
It is noteworthy that after the death of Yechury, Prakash Karat, the former general secretary of the party and considered the most staunch towards ideological purity, is taking over the command of the party. Anyway, even during Yechury’s tenure, Karat’s lobby i.e. Kerala lobby was dominant. But now Karat is in direct command. His biggest concern is to save Kerala, the only remaining bastion of the Left. In Kerala, CPM led Left Democratic Front or LDF has won the elections twice in a row. It had ousted the Congress from power in 2016 and despite losing all but one Lok Sabha seat in 2019, the Left Front won again in 2021. Now the Left Front has lost all the seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. That’s why Karat feels that the stronghold of Kerala will have to be saved somehow. Keep in mind that all is not well between CPM and CPI in Kerala. He has to fix everything till the party congress next year so that there is better preparation for the elections in the remaining one year. Karat’s problem is not only of CPI but also of CPI Male, whose base is in Bihar. It is being said that after creating unity in Kerala, efforts will be made in the rest of the country.