Biman Bose and Prakash Karat at the CPM office in Delhi on Monday. (PTI)

New Delhi, May 19: The CPM politburo today expressed “deep concern” at the “serious reverses” suffered in Bengal and Kerala but remained ostrich-like in denial about the many internal crises that plague the party.

A politburo statement, the first after the sledgehammer verdict, celebrated the drubbing of the BJP, took credit for some of the Congress’s electoral success and hinted that even though the third front was rejected by the electorate as a “credible and viable” option at the Centre, the strategic line on pursuing a non-Congress, non-BJP alternative remained relevant.

“It should be noted that both the parties (Congress and BJP) together have polled less than 49 per cent of the vote just like in the 2004 elections,” the politburo said.

Seeking to share some of the credit, the statement added: “What stood them (Congress) in good stead were some of the measures adopted by the UPA government like the NREGA, the Forest Tribal Act and other social welfare measures which were pushed through under Left pressure.”

The party appears to be obfuscating on its third front construct in many ways. It justifies such an alliance in the name of a secular alternative, but it is known that the strong Bengal lobby within has been opposed to the party indulging in such adventurist alliance-building at the national level.

Indeed, the old Left debate on whether the Congress is the only credible core of a national secular alliance — strongly rejected by CPM general secretary Prakash Karat — will resume and intensify in the weeks to come.

The politburo promised a “serious examination and self-critical review” of the reasons for the reverses but a promise is all for the moment. It is evident the party leadership wants internal heat in the wake of the electoral debacle to settle down before it discusses and pronounces on what went wrong.

Rift and dissent have been rippling within the CPM for months now, and the massive electoral setback brought some of that into the open, with many party leaders openly naming the central leadership’s confrontationist break with the UPA among the reasons for the poor showing.

The internal differences are serious enough for Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to have wanted to resign, a move he had to be persuaded against.

Among the many key issues the politburo appears to have glossed over are:

The reasons for the massive erosion in its traditional vote base in Bengal in particular. The large-scale drift away of the minority vote in both the states; the CPM did a controversial deal with the Madani-led PDP in Kerala but the IUML, a UPA ally, won two seats;

Ideological issues of land acquisition and industrialisation at the expense of the rural poor. Singur and Nandigram created a situation where Mamata Banerjee was able to credibly mount the platform that was exclusively the Left Front’s. Also, there is a feeling within the party that the leadership has not been able to calibrate for itself and articulate to the people the dissonance between its strong anti-liberalisation posture at the national level and Bhattacharjee’s pro-investment position in Bengal;

Corruption and factionalism. Kerala chief minister V.S. Achuthanandan and state party secretary Pinarayi Vijayan have been in protracted and open war. Pinarayi, a politburo member, faces corruption charges in the Lavlin case and the impression sent about by the party leadership is that it is seeking to shelter behind technicalities and prevent a transparent probe.

At another level, there is also a rising murmur in party cadres over the “lifestyle corruption” that has crept into the leadership over time. As one party member complained: “You cannot expect your ground cadres to live off a Rs 900-wage when their leaders’ lifestyles have undergone a sea change. That sort of thing prompts the cadres to resort to corrupt methods as well, and it has happened in the party down the line.”

At the district-level in Bengal, where the CPM has ruled for over 30 years, the impression has gained currency that the party no longer represents the poor and underprivileged; this became evident during the recent campaign and may have contributed heavily to the CPM’s huge losses.