Bengal CPM to remove 5,000 ‘inactive’ workers

The CPM leadership has decided to remove about 5,000 workers in West Bengal for being inactive after drawing a blank in the state in the Lok Sabha elections.

According to sources in the CPM state committee, the decision has been taken after it came to the state leadership’s notice that despite a warning against being inactive, a section of party workers did not perform their designated duties during the Lok Sabha elections.

CPM sources further revealed that the reason behind the inactivity of these party workers was their fear of being attacked by TMC cadres and lack of faith in the party.

The drive to expel inactive party workers is being carried out under instruction from CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury and his state secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra.

"So far we have prepared a list of about 5,000 inactive party workers from the districts of Murshidabad, East and West Bardhaman, Purulia and North Dinajpur. They will be either expelled or their membership will not be renewed,” a senior CPM state committee member told DH.

Pointing out that currently, the CPM has about 1.15 lakh members in West Bengal, he said that the removal of about 5,000 inactive workers would not make any negative impact on the party organisation.

"On the contrary, it would benefit the party as active and dedicated workers will have a larger scope of work," the committee member said.

This is an attempt to execute the decision taken at the CPM’s state-level plenum in 2016 where the state secretary blamed the inactive party workers for the debacle in the Assembly election the same year.

However, party sources said that so far the drive to remove inactive workers has not seen much progress.

The CPM state leadership is apprehensive that the party will fail to make any mark in the upcoming civic polls if such inactive workers remain in the organisation.

Party sources said that since the civic polls will be conducted by the state Election Commission and security arrangements will be made by the state police there is a great possibility of the ruling TMC resorting to terror tactics.

"Such inactive workers will a be a liability to the party as they will be of no use in putting up a resistance against the TMC’s terror tactics,” the state committee leader said.