Amid electoral setbacks, D Raja calls for urgent meeting with Left parties to 're-establish Left as a powerful force'

The CPI has taken the initiative as it felt that the lack of communication among the Left and coordinated action is impacting a collective fight and with the CPI(M) not taking the initiative, it should fill in, the sources said.

New Delhi: In an unusual move, CPI General Secretary D Raja has written to top leaders of the Left parties seeking a meeting to "deliberate seriously" on "re-establishing the Left as a powerful force" at a time it is not able to convince people, particularly youth, facing hardship under the Modi regime.

Usually, the CPI(M) calls such meetings but for the past over one year, no such meetings have been convened though a few joint statements, which a senior leader lamented were majorly on international issues, were issued since 2025, prompting the CPI top leader to seek a meeting in the first week of June.

Sources said the CPI has taken the initiative as it felt that the lack of communication among the Left and coordinated action is impacting a collective fight and with the CPI(M) not taking the initiative, it should fill in. 

A senior Left leader said the CPI(M) has suggested that the General Secretaries of CPI(M), CPI and CPI(ML)L – should first meet and then the Left meeting could happen. The meeting of leaders of the communist parties is likely to be held this Saturday.

In his letter to CPI(M) General Secretary MA Baby, CPI(ML)L's Dipankar Bhattacharya, Forward Bloc's G Devarajan and RSP's Manoj Bhattacharya, the CPI leader has insisted that a discussion is "both timely and necessary" and wanted such a meeting to happen "as soon as possible" in the first week of June.

He highlighted that the Left's recent electoral setbacks and difficulty to "politically inspire large sections of youth" at a time the "aggressive advance" of the BJP-RSS is intensifying communal polarisation and unemployment, rice rise, economic mismanagement and inequalities are making lives of people "increasingly difficult".

Raja wrote, "..despite the hardships faced by the masses, the Left has not been able to effectively convince large sections of the people about the urgent necessity of a Left and democratic alternative" while acknowledging that it was "equally worrying" that there is a relative decline in sustained mass movements. 

"These developments require serious introspection and collective deliberation among all Left forces. In the present political situation, it is imperative that the Left projects itself before the people as a credible, united and fighting alternative," he said. 

He said he felt that the Left leaders "must sit together, deliberate seriously" on the prevailing situation and collectively chalk out a path that can help "re-establish the Left as a powerful force" capable of defending the interests of the people and resisting the "communal and crony capitalist rule" of the BJP.