A Draft Political Resolution speaks of ways of strengthening the party to restore its lost glory.
NEW DELHI: The influence of the Communist Party of India (CPI) is diminishing in India. Looking at the lost glory and declining influence of the CPI, the party has brought forth the Draft Political Resolution, which discusses the shortcomings and tactics to revive the party. The 24th Party Congress is to be held in Vijaywada, Andhra Pradesh, from 14-18 October 2022. However, the changes will only be adopted if they are approved by the Party Congress.
A senior CPI political leader told The Sunday Guardian, “We want to make some changes, but the Party Congress needs to approve the changes. We have plans to create a more youthful and dynamic party. Changes like appointing full-time young state secretaries, and holding conferences once in every four years will help the party to revive, however, the Party Congress needs to approve of all these changes.”
The Draft Political Resolution speaks of ways to strengthen the CPI, such as overcoming all deviations, “alien tendencies and weaknesses by necessary changes in the party organisations at all levels” to reconnect with the people and build grassroots movements so as to strengthen the party with strong masses. The draft also speaks of intensifying political ideologies with high-quality teaching amongst all party members to launch broad-based militant movements.
The majority of party members agree that the party has become weaker due to the absence of militant mass struggles. Most of the party leaders believe that focusing on the elections alone has weakened their structure and created a lull in the electoral base by claiming the leadership of mass movements has led to the fragmentation of the vote base. By the 1990s, the vote share dropped to 2.50%.
The CPI, which was founded in 1925, the same year as the RSS, has been irrelevant for more than 20 years. Its vote share in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections fell to 0.58%. The Election Commission of India is about to decertify it as a national political party due to its consistently dismal performance in subsequent state and federal elections. The party document doesn’t mention the primary reasons for the Communists’ division into numerous factions.
Recently, the Communist Party of India (CPI) criticised its ally, the Communist Party of India Marxist (CPIM), for portraying Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s administration as a “one-man show.” The CPI slammed the issues of the CPIM policy on cooperative banks, the implementation of the (SilverLine railway) project, and accused them of violating employment norms.