"That the West Bengal CPM’s stand on BJP and Trinamul was at variance with the line of the central committee was made unambiguously clear by Sitaram Yechury in his recent statement and in the stand taken by the central leadership of the party. While these criticisms have led the West Bengal CPM to admit it was wrong to coin the “Bijemul” slogan and, thereby, virtually equate the TMC with the BJP, I’m not sure whether this necessarily is a sign of a serious rethinking within the party in West Bengal.
In
fact, this is related to a larger question. The West Bengal Left, in
general, has been prone to believe that the virus of communalism has
been predominantly absent from the Bengali psyche and that this is
explained by Bengal’s cultural heritage. Consequently, it has never
taken into consideration the apparently invisible undercurrent of
communalism that flows through the veins of the average Bengali.
This
led to a feeling of complacence in regard to the threat of the BJP and
its consequent underestimation. In other words, there is no use in
simply admitting that a mistake was committed unless appropriate
corrective measures are adopted.
As
regards the possibility of an all-India anti-BJP alliance where the TMC
and the Left can join hands, there is nothing unusual about it. This
can certainly happen because of the situational compulsion. The process
has already started at the central level although there are many knotty
issues to be resolved involving Congress-TMC-Left equations.", said Prof
Sobhanlal Datta Gupta in an interview to Telegraph.
