CPI(M) politburo member Sitaram Yechury on Monday dropped indications of a possible merger of his party and the CPI.
The senior CPI(M) leader said that the process will take some time. As a run-up, both the parties want to take up the unification programme from the grassroots level, rather than from the top. He was participating in a “meet the press” programme organised by the AP Union of Working Journalists here, Mr Yechury said that though the merger of the two major Left parties was desirable, they had to follow certain procedures before the unification. “One way of doing it is through the unification of various mass organisations and joint activities at the lower level, which will percolate to the top,” he said.
The Communist Party of India, that was formed in 1920, split in 1964 following ideological differences among its leaders. The breakaway group, which came to be known as the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and was formed during the seventh congress of the CPI held at Calcutta, as it was then called, between October 31 and November 7, 1964. Electorally, the Maxist party has generally been the bigger of the two groups.
He said that the parties had been working towards the goal at the mass organisation level. “I think that is a more sustainable path, rather than the leadership coming together. The process is on,” he said. Mr Yechury, however, avoided a direct answer when asked if the process could eventually lead to the merger of the CPI(M) and the CPI. “I hope so”, was the cryptic reply. To another question on the time-frame of the merger, he said he could give a definite time-frame but added that the well-wishers of both the parties wanted the process to happen at the earliest.