- Rajesh Tyagi/ 21 April 2012
CPM, the main Stalinist party in
India, held its six day long 20th Congress
in Kozhikode coastal city in south western state of Kerala, from 4-9 April
2012. Party Congress was held in the backdrop of a political crisis that had
recently precipitated in fall of the “left front” government in West Bengal,
led by it.
Congress
was marked, on its eve, by huge celebrations on the sea beach, starting with
flag hoisting amidst fireworks turning the skyline red. This great fanfare,
though, was but a desperate attempt to cover-up the whole series of crushing
defeats and failures suffered by the Stalinist Party, from general elections of
2009 to recent assembly polls, routing the Stalinists even in their strongholds
in West Bengal and Kerala. Behind the celebrations, lurked the real worry of
Stalinist leadership to keep the bureaucratic apparatus of the party intact, in
face of erosion of its mass appeal. Echoing these worries, Polit Bureau member S. Ramachandran Pillai in his
speech said that “the corporate media’s false campaigning that the CPI(M) has
lost its significance and relevance with the setbacks the Party suffered in the
Lok Sabha polls and assembly polls would prove wrong. The relevance of the
Party as well as the Left forces was increasing in the given political
situation. The CPI(M) is not dependent on its electoral strength or gains in
the polls. Instead, the Party is going ahead with its strength of mass
organisations”.
