CPI(M) looks to bolster Opposition unity with TRS, JD(U)

The CPI(M) has found positives in the return of Nitish-Kumar-led JD(U) into the secular alliance and TRS shedding its "ambivalence of the past" to "strongly" take on the BJP, which the Left party believes will aid a united Opposition charge against the Narendra Modi regime, an internal report showed.

However, the Left party was not sympathetic to Trinamool Congress, saying that recent developments have "disillusioned those who saw the Trinamool Congress as a committed anti-fascist fighter" as it cited Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's remarks that “RSS was not that bad” and that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not being behind the misuse of central agencies.

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In the 'Report on Certain Political Developments' adopted at the Central Committee meeting in October, the party has also said that the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra appears to be an effort to unify Congress and salvage its position by strengthening its links with people at a time the main Opposition party is in disarray and there are large-scale defections.

The CPI(M) viewed the JD(U) leaving the NDA in Bihar and forming a government with RJD, Congress and the Left as a "shot in the arm", as it specially came soon after the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government collapsed following a split in Shiv Sena engineered with the help of the BJP.

“Coming soon after the BJP’s horse-trading and destabilisation of the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA in Maharashtra and the formation of the alternate government of Eknath Shinde with BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis as Deputy Chief Minister, this Bihar development came as a shot in the arm for the secular forces in rallying against the Hindutva communal offensive,” it said.

The CPI(M), which has been suspicious about TRS' stand in the past, noted that it has come out strongly against the BJP "shedding all ambivalence of the past" and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has been taking initiatives to rally some secular parties at the national level against the BJP.

"The BJP’s aggressiveness and brazen efforts at engineering defections from other parties was also a factor for this changed position of the TRS. The Chief Minister has launched a national Party, Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) aiming to play a national role," the report said.

The 23-page report notes that interactions among secular opposition parties have increased following these developments with Nitish Kumar visiting Opposition leaders proposing unity to defeat the BJP and NCP chief Sharad Pawar, who was re-elected as party chief, proposing unity among secular parties. The party also took note of INLD's big meeting on the occasion of late Devi Lal’s birth anniversary in this context.

The report also gave space to a scathing attack on Trinamool with the CPI(M) for "sudden volte-face" during the Vice-Presidential election to abstain, reneging the earlier assurance to opposition political leaders of supporting the united opposition candidate.

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"Mamata Banerjee has a history of association with the RSS/BJP in the past also being a cabinet minister in the Vajpayee government. The rise of the Trinamool as an anti-Communist force in West Bengal was often in alliance with the BJP. These recent developments have disillusioned those who saw the Trinamool as a committed anti-fascist fighter," it said.

In the report, the CPI(M) acknowledged that the 3,570 km yatra which started on September 7 had evoked a response in the southern states but said that one will "have to watch the response of the people" when it enters the BJP strongholds in north India.

"Given the recent developments of disarray within the Congress and the defection of many of its leaders in some states to BJP this yatra appears as an effort to unify the party and salvage its position by strengthening its links with the people," the report said.

Senior Congress leaders themselves have highlighted that the Kanyakumari to Kashmir 'padayatra' is bringing warring factions in states on a common platform and burying their differences and cited the instances of leaders in Maharashtra and Karnataka.

There was so much speculation about Ashok Chavan leaving the party but it was his organisational skills that made the rally organised in Nanded as part of the yatra hugely successful, a senior leader said recently highlighting the positives of the yatra.