On April 5, when Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury met for half an hour, they did not only discuss the Goods and Services Tax bills that were due to be taken up in the Rajya Sabha. Gandhi also offered Yechury his party’s support to ensure his re-election to the upper House when polls are held in August.
Yechury will complete his second term in the Rajya Sabha in August, when five other seats from West Bengal will also fall vacant. These five departing MPs are all members of the ruling Trinamool Congress – D Bandyopadhyay, P Bhattacharya, Derek O’Brien, SS Roy and Dola Sen.
Though the Left party is yet to take a call on Gandhi’s offer, the Congress leadership has already told its West Bengal unit to forgo its claim to a seat and to ensure support for Yechury, in case he files his nomination. Congress insiders, however, said the offer of support is for Yechury alone and not for any other candidate from his party, and is intended as much to ensure the continuation of a prominent voice in Parliament as it is to lay down a foundation for Congress-Communist unity to facilitate an anti-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition.
Left party in a dilemma
The Congress offer has put the leadership of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in a fix. Accepting it and nominating Yechury would mean giving up its practice of not nominating any party member for more than two terms in the Rajya Sabha. It would also be seen as a deviation from its convention of the serving general secretary not representing the party in Parliament. This rule did not apply in 2015 when Yechury became the party general secretary because he was already a member of the Rajya Sabha at that time and his resignation might have resulted in the seat slipping into the hands of the Trinamool Congress.
A rejection of the Congress offer, though, would result in the Left party’s strength in the upper House slipping further. This is because the party, with 26 MLAs in the 294-member state Assembly, does not have the numbers to ensure its candidate’s victory in the biennial polls.
The Trinamool Congress, with 211 members in the Assembly, is set to retain all five of the Rajya Sabha seats its currently holds. It may even win the sixth seat if the Congress – with 44 MLAs – and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) do not put up a joint candidate. Along with the Revolutionary Socialist Party, All India Forward Bloc and Communist Party of India, the Left Front’s total strength in the Assembly is 32 – still less than that of the Congress.
Logically, therefore, if the offer is not accepted, the Congress may claim the seat for its own candidate instead of giving it to a Left candidate other than Yechury.
According to some in the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the central committee, the party’s all-powerful decision-making body, has so far not given its approval to the Congress offer. But the party’s West Bengal unit is in favour of Yechury’s continuation in Parliament, even if it means breaking from tradition and setting a new precedent.