Differences over nominating CPM chief Sitaram Yechury from West Bengal for the RS polls surfaced again with central leadership blocking it.
Kolkata| The CPM is perhaps the only party where the ruling chief finds his political ambition ruined all over again. It is certain now that Sitaram Yechury will not go to the Rajya Sabha this season.
The CPM has cited political compulsions and party’s code of Rajya Sabha nomination for not allowing Sitaram Yechury file nomination from West Bengal for the upcoming election to the upper house of Parliament. The decision was taken in a meeting of the CPM held on February 6 in New Delhi.
The politburo of the CPM – currently dominated by the Kerala faction of the party – shot down the proposal of sending Sitaram Yechury to the Rajya Sabha with the help of the Congress. The West Bengal faction was earlier said to have been keen on nominating Sitaram Yechury to the Rajya Sabha.
A senior party leader, wishing not to be named, told India Today that it is an old tradition in the CPM that the party general secretary does not contest an election. Moreover, the leader said, the party does not nominate the same leader for the Rajya Sabha for more than two terms.
Sitaram Yechury had been the Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament for two consecutive terms between 2005 and 2017. Upon the expiry of his second term in 2017, the Congress had offered to support his candidature in West Bengal, where the CPM had lost power to Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress.
Also Read: Lok Sabha to become paperless from next session: Speaker
But the CPM had declined the offer citing rules and political compulsion that the party fights both the Congress and the TMC in West Bengal, and hence it was against its principles to take help of the rival party in the Rajya Sabha election.
Election to five Rajya Sabha seats from West Bengal will be held on March 26. Trinamool Congress holds four seats and is in position to retain all its seats. The fifth seat belonged to Ritabrata Bandopadhyay, who became the Rajya Sabha member in 2014 as CPM nominee.
But he was expelled from the CPM in 2017. Since then the CPM does not have representation in the Rajya Sabha. This is the first instance since its creation in 1964 that the CPM does not have a Rajya Sabha or Lok Sabha MP from West Bengal.
Interestingly, some of the CPM leaders believe that Sitaram Yechury has been most successful as CPM general secretary in recent past, and has played a key role in upping the ante against the ruling BJP and the Modi government over a range of issues.
(Inputs From India Today)
As an independent media platform, we do not take advertisements from governments and corporate houses. It is you, our readers, who have supported us on our journey to do honest and unbiased journalism. Please contribute, so that we can continue to do the same in future.
