Kolkata: Three weeks ahead of the scheduled CPI(M) plenum on December 27 here, party general secretary Sitaram Yechury today claimed that erosion in the party’s support base had been arrested to a great extent and the organisation revamped.
“The erosion in the party support base has stopped to a great extent. This is not a major concern now,” Yechury asserted.
Soon after taking over as the party general secretary, Yechury had said that the primary objective of the party was “first to arrest the decline and then to reverse it” in Bengal. The CPI-M membership was reported to have dropped drastically over the past four years.
Without naming the TMC, he accused it of resorting to ‘terror tactics’ and said that ‘surmounting’ the terror was the primary requirement to organise mass movements.
Yechury alleged, “The BJP and the TMC are hand in glove with one another in each of their moves.”
“TMC needs the Centre in slowing down the inquiry into the Saradha and other such scams and the BJP needs TMC’s support to pass various bills in the Rajya Sabha,” he said.
Replying to a question on the recent defection of a CPI-M MLA to the Trinamool Congress, Yechury described it as an ‘isolated’ incident and said “there is no mass erosion in the party.”
The question was with reference to immediate expulsion of Nabin Chandra Bag, CPI(M) MLA from Khandaghosh in Burdwan district, soon after he switched over to the TMC last month.
In another case last year, CPI-M MLA Chaya Dolui from Chandrokona in Paschim Medinipur district defected to the ruling party.
Blaming both the Centre and state government for starvation deaths in closed tea gardens in North Bengal, Yechury said that neither of these governments had shown any initiative to resolve the issue.
Regarding GST bill, Yechury blamed the Modi government alleging its failure to convene an all-party meeting on the issue.
Yechury’s claim of the support base erosion being checked is seen by party insiders as giving encouragement to party cadres to strengthen their organisation ahead of next year’s Assembly poll.
As part of the preparation, the CPI(M) has started building mass-contact by taking out Jathas (March) across the state in a bid to stage a comeback.
To a question, the CPI-M politburo member and party MP Md Salim described the CM’s proposed meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a bid to save her party from the CBI probe into the Saradha scam.