Smarting under the recent drubbing in the West Bengal civic polls, the Communist Party of India-Marxist on Sunday decided to take appropriate remedial steps to strengthen the organisation and win back the confidence of the electorate.
The issue figured at the two-day meeting of party politburo in New Delhi, which went into a preliminary report submitted by the Bengal state secretariat on the poor showing of the Left Front in the municipal elections.
"The West Bengal state committee will conduct a review of the election on the basis of which necessary political and organisational steps can be taken to win back the confidence of those sections of the people which have moved away from the party," senior leader Sitaram Yechury said after the meeting.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya did not attend the meeting but the party quickly scotched speculation about his having offered his resignation.
"The question does not arise," Bengal CPI-M Secretary Biman Bose said when asked about reports that Bhattacharya has offered to resign.
Of the 81 municipal bodies, the Left Front won in only 18 municipalities while archrival Trinamool Congress bagged 36.
The Trinamool also swept the prestigious Kolkata Municipal Corporation polls. Yechury said the politburo also discussed the outline of a draft document on the review of political decisions taken in the past three years.
The PB will meet next month to finalise the draft to be presented to the central committee. This resolution will be placed before the extended central committee meeting in Vijayawada in August.
The extended CC meeting is being held as CPI-M decided to postpone the party Congress, which was to be held this year, due to upcoming assembly polls in West Bengal.
There was no consensus on the draft and so the leaders decided to meet again next month, a senior leader said.
"No, no. We have not reached on a consensus. That is why there is one more meeting. There are differences on the implementation of political line adopted in the last party congress," he said when asked about the deliberations in the two-day meeting.
Sources said there were intense discussions on the decisions taken by the party leadership with regard to aligning with non-Bharatiya Janata Party, non-Congress parties like Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and others during the past three years.
There were also discussions on the strategy adopted during cut motions and its fall out, they said.
However, the leaders were unanimous in backing the decision to withdraw support to United Progressive Alliance government on Indo-US nuclear deal in 2008.
"There were no opposition to the decision to withdraw support to UPA either in politburo or central committee. But there were discussions on other issues on which decisions were taken after the party congress. That was reviewed. We discussed these problems," senior politburo member M K Pandhe mediapersons in New Delhi.
