Communist parties have a history of being caught in the web of their own contradictions. But this is one consequence of his action that Prakash Karat could not have anticipated when he launched the Left’s crusade against the nuclear deal between India and the United States of America. His wisdom has now been questioned by none other than Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who has openly defended nuclear power. It is not that he has done so for the first time. He had not only pleaded earlier for a nuclear power plant in Bengal but also identified a site for it. But the context in which he has reiterated his preference for nuclear power makes his position politically significant. The chief minister has thus challenged the contention of his own party that nuclear power is not the answer to India’s growing energy problems. The arguments actually go beyond nuclear power and relate to the Indo-US nuclear agreement. The prime minister, Manmohan Singh, and the Congress have defended the agreement primarily for what it can do to augment India’s nuclear energy. Mr Karat and his colleagues in the Communist Party of India (Marxist), on the other hand, think that nuclear power can make only a small addition to the country’s total power production and that too at exorbitant costs. Mr Bhattacharjee has almost demolished the party line.

However, politics, and not nuclear power, is really the significant part of the chief minister’s remarks. What does one make of the fact that his comments have come in the thick of his party’s threat to pull down the United Progressive Alliance government on the issue of the nuclear agreement? Also, the politburo and the central committee of the CPI(M) are scheduled to debate the issue once again in Calcutta later this month. It is reasonable to assume that Mr Bhattacharjee wants Mr Karat to reconsider his position on the nuclear agreement and on the Left’s equations with the UPA government. That, of course, begs the other question as to why he should think so differently from Mr Karat. The obvious answer is that Mr Bhattacharjee’s primary concern is Bengal’s development, whereas Mr Karat busies himself only with ideological hair-splitting. Mr Bhattacharjee owes it to the people of Bengal to force his party to shun Mr Karat’s brand of politics. If he succeeds, that could be his historic contribution to both Bengal and his party.