Tripura chief minister and CPI(M) politburo member Manik Sarkar virtually stirred a hornet’s nest by revealing the internal proceedings of an important central committee meeting of the secretive party held 17 years ago where the party plugged former West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu’s aspiration to become Prime Minister of the country which the departed leader later described as a “historic blunder”.
The much discussed meeting was held under the backdrop of a decision of several Left, secular and democratic political parties to form government at the Center with outside support from Congress and Mr Basu emerged as their undisputed leader to become the Prime Minister. Though all the parties in the block wanted Mr Basu as their leader the CPI(M) central committee turned down the proposal based on an earlier decision that the party will not be part of any government where they won’t have the requisite strength to control the policy matters.
The issue caused a difference of opinion in the party as the then general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjit was in favour of accepting the offer while another faction, led by present general secretary of the party Prakash Karat, opposed it that necessitated a voting in the central committee meeting where the proposal was defeated by two votes.