CPM top body to meet today

CPM Polit Bureau will meet here on Monday to see whether the warring factions led by Sitaram Yechury and Prakash Karat can find a common ground on the party’s approach towards Opposition parties, especially the Congress.

The Polit Bureau is meeting for the second time in a month to finalise the outline for a draft political resolution for the triennial Party Congress in Hyderabad in April 2018, but there is no sign of a thaw among the leaders on having an electoral truck with the Congress.

While the section led by general secretary Yechury is of the view that there is a need for joining hands with the Congress and other secular parties to take on the BJP, the Karat-led faction feels that there is no need to change the political-tactical line of keeping the Congress at an arm’s length.

Yechury has the backing of the Bengal unit that favours a truck with the Congress while Karat, who handed over the party’s reins in the 2015 Party Congress to Yechury, is banking on the Kerala unit’s support, which is vehemently against any such move. “Let us see if we can reach an agreement,” a senior Polit Bureau member said.

Sources said if the 16-member Polit Bureau, where the Karat faction has a majority, cannot find a common ground, then the “two approaches” will go to the Central Committee that will meet here for three days from October 14 to finalise the outline. It is to be seen how the Central Committee meeting this month would decide on two positions.

The draft resolution on the political-tactical line will be finalised by the Central Committee in January next year and put in the public domain for discussions before the Party Congress finalises it.

The differences among the factions had come to the fore in the the Bengal unit’s decision to have an understanding with the Congress in the Bengal Assembly elections and on giving Yechury a third term in the Rajya Sabha.

After the last Polit Bureau meeting on September 7, the CPM had issued an unusual denial on the remarks made by Yechury that hinted at possible changes in the party’s line.