Youth, rural support base in focus at Bengal CPI(M) state conference
According to delegates attending the conference, CPI(M) central committee coordinator Prakash Karat expressed concern over the party’s organisational weakness in West Bengal
A four-day state conference of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) began in West Bengal’s Hooghly district on Saturday, with leaders emphasising the need to induct young members and address the growing distance between the party and its rural support base.
The 27th state conference of the CPI(M) Bengal unit is being attended by the party’s national leaders such as its central committee coordinator Prakash Karat.
According to delegates attending the conference, Karat expressed concern over the party’s organisational weakness in the state that it ruled for 34 years without a break until its 2011 defeat to the Trinamool Congress (TMC).
“Karat said in his inaugural speech that neither TMC nor the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) can be countered if the CPI(M) fails to induct more young members. Having only young leaders is not enough, he said,” a state committee member said, requesting anonymity.
Former CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, who died in September last year, had repeatedly advised the party to focus on this major shortcoming, said some of the delegates.
“After CPI(M) failed to win any seat in the 294-member Bengal legislative assembly in the 2021 polls, Yechury told state leaders at an internal meeting that the median age of the nation’s population, which is around 28 years, should reflect in the party or else it will fail to face its opponents,” a second state committee member said.
“In 2011, when the mandate went against us, 30.08% voters still backed us. In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, our vote share stood at 5.67%. State secretary Md Salim said in his address that the distance between CPI(M) and the rural population, our main support base till a decade ago, is evident,” said a delegate from the Kolkata district committee.
“These issues will figure at the 24th party congress in Madurai in April,” he added.
The state conference started after tributes were paid to Yechury and former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who died in August last year.
