Prakash Karat’s line against allying with Congress gives BJP the upper-hand in his Kerala hometown

On Sunday, veteran Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Prakash Karat persuaded members of his organsation not to enter into “any understanding or alliance” with the Congress, a strategy advocated by the general secretary Sitaram Yechury. Awkwardly for Karat, the decision has left the party in a bind in his own hometown.

Palakkad, where the former CPI(M) chief is from, is the only municipality in Kerala ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP is the single-largest party but does not have the majority. It has been in power since 2015 because the CPI(M) has refused to join hands with the Congress to unseat the BJP chairperson of the municipality. Local party leaders argue that accepting the Congress’ offer would amount to deviating from the party’s principled position.

“We can’t join hands with the Congress to dislodge the BJP in Palakkad municipality,” the communist party’s Lok Sabha member from Palakkad MB Rajesh said. “That would be against our current political line.”

The problem is this amounts to sacrificing the party’s “primary objective”, if in a limited sense. At the Central Committee meeting on Sunday, Karat and Yechury agreed that the party’s main objective was to defeat the BJP; they only disagreed about whether achieving it necessitated aligning with the Congress.

How will the CPI(M) negotiate this conundrum in Palakkad? “We are mobilising people and building a mass movement against the BJP regime,” said Rajesh. “Shortcuts like aligning with the Congress party to defeat the BJP in the municipality won’t be good for the party in the long run.”

Ground reality

The Congress is even ready to accept an independent councillor as the municipality’s chairperson if the CPI(M) agrees to join forces with it to unseat the BJP. “The BJP does not have the majority so its rule can be ended the moment the CPI(M) and the Congress decide to do so,” said the Congress legislator from Palakkad Shafi Parambil. “The CPI(M) just has to issue a statement. We are not claiming the chairmanship of the municipality. Both parties can even back an independent councillor to remove the BJP from Palakkad.”

In the election held in November 2015, the BJP won 24 of the Palakkad municipality’s 52 wards while the Congress-led United Democratic Front and the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front together got 26. One each went to the Welfare Party and an independent. In the United Democratic Front, the Congress won 13 seats and the Indian Union Muslim League four. In the Left Front, the CPI(M) got six wards while three went to independent candidates backed by the party.

Both the Congress and the CPI(M) fielded candidates for the post of chairperson, leading to a three-way contest with the BJP’s Prameela Sasidharan. Given that the opposition’s votes were divided, Sasidharan sailed through.

Two years later, with the Central Committee voting against Yechury’s proposal to have a political understanding or an electoral alliance with “secular parties”, the CPI(M) in Palakkad is clueless about how to fight the BJP, which the party has identified as its prime enemy.

For a party that projects itself as one committed to ideology, Karat’s line could be seen as the politics of principle. But in today’s political context, when the BJP is the country’s dominant political force by some margin, it might not be a practical position to take. At least, that is how it appears in Palakkad.