West Bengal CPM upset after Sitaram Yechury denied Rajya Sabha seat

New Delhi: The denial of a third term in the Rajya Sabha to CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, apart from being another “historical” blunder, will also result in major political realignments for the party in West Bengal, where its focus was on creating a distance between the Congress and the Trinamul Congress.

Before Mr Yechury, then West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu had been denied a shot at the Prime Minister’s post by his party in 1992.

This time around, six Rajya Sabha seats in West Bengal fall vacant out of which five will go to TMC and the sixth one to Congress. The Congress, specially vice- president Rahul Gandhi, was keen that Mr Yechury is re-elected from the sixth seat in order for the Opposition to have a strong voice in the Upper House.

However, the CPI(M) Central Committee, its highest decision making body, decided against another term for Mr Yechury and this move has disappointed the West Bengal unit.

The Bengla unit of the party, which is a bitter rival of the TMC in West Bengal, is uncomfortable with the new closeness between the Congress and Mamata Banerjee’s party, but the decision not to field Mr Yechury for a second term seals this very closeness and now Congress’ Meira Kumar in all likelihood will get elected with TMC support from the seat.

Though the Central Committee maintained that the possibility of getting a joint Opposition candidate from the sixth seat in Bengal should be explored, leaders in the West Bengal unit of the party maintained that this was not possible as it would also entail seeking Congress support which was one of the g rounds on which Mr Yechury’s candidature was rejected.

At the CPI(M) Central Committee meeting on Tuesday, the three grounds on which Mr Yechury’s candidature was negated was that there has been no precedent for a third term, that a party general secretary could not be in the Rajya Sabha and that the CPI(M) cannot  take Congress support to send its candidate to the Upper House.

However, a top leader from the party’s Bengal unit told this newspaper that when Mr Yechury had taken over as the General Secretary he had been allowed to remain a Rajya Sabha member with the argument that his resignation would mean that the seat goes to the Trinamul Congress since the strength of the party had depleted in the West Bengal Assembly.

“With this, the objecting of creating a distance between the TMC and the Conrges vanishes and this will opens the way for a fresh poaching ground for the BJP,” the leader said.

The party in Bengal is apprehensive that certain local Congress leaders will veer towards the BJP to find political relevance now since  the TMC was the ruling party in the state.

Interestingly, while the Left, Congress and TMC are bitter rivals in Bengal, they are trying to forge a common anti-Modi front at the Centre.