There are no factions in the Communist Party and no clash with Sitaram Yechury, says Prakash Karat

There is no factionalism or clashes within the Communist Party of India (Marxist), senior leader Prakash Karat said in an article in his party’s mouthpiece on Thursday.

Karat was referring to reports about his differences with party general secretary Sitaram Yechury over the Draft Political Resolution, which will define the party’s political line for the next three years.

Yechury sought to use the resolution to realign with “secular forces” against the Bharatiya Janata Party, while Karat holds the resolution responsible for the decline of the party. On January 21, the party’s Central Committee rejected Yechury’s proposal and decided to back Karat’s strategy to not ally with the Congress for the 2019 elections.

His article in the People’s Democracy on Thursday, Karat said most reports in mainstream media were “either ill-informed about the style of functioning of the CPI(M) as a Communist Party, or, they utilised the occasion to draw motivated and distorted conclusions intended to depict the Party leadership in a poor light”.

Karat said he found that the media, especially in Kerala and West Bengal, were trying to “portray that two drafts have been presented by two factions”.

“Some went further to depict it as a clash between two individuals, in this case, the current general secretary and the former general secretary,” Karat wrote. “Such a depiction is baseless and wrong as discussions on differing political views and approaches within the framework of inner-Party democracy are reduced to personality clashes and so-called personal differences.”

Decisions within the committee are made after “a free and frank discussion”, Karat said.

Yechury had offered to resign after the committee turned down his proposal. The CPI(M) will make the final decision on adopting the proposal at the party congress in Hyderabad in April.