Bardhan Makes a Reluctant Exit

The CPI veteran known for his penchant for power has stepped down, but not before a surprise bid to change the party constitution

A cynical attempt to give the Communist Party of India’s (CPI’s) ageing patriarch AB Bardhan an exalted position in the party turned out to be a damp squib. Nonetheless, it was the main talking point among CPI delegates who had gathered at Patna between 27 and 31 March for the 21st party congress.

The ‘move’ took the form of an amendment in the party’s constitution, to create the post of a party president. Many delegates felt that if the move had gone through, it would have subverted the process of a smooth change of guard in the CPI, something that was obvious and expected much before the five day conference began on 27 March.

However, the move was deftly thwarted by S Sudhakar Reddy—the CPI leader who became the new general secretary—ending Bardhan’s long, unquestioned reign over the CPI.

Bardhan had enjoyed uninterrupted supremacy in the party for one-and-a-half decades. While the move took many by surprise, some of the delegates confessed that they had expected it—given Bardhan’s penchant for power.

It all seemed to have started rather innocuously when two senior party leaders proposed an amendment to the CPI constitution, creating the post of a party president. Both these leaders belong to the Bharatiya Khet Mazdoor Union (BKMU), CPI’s mass front for agricultural labourers. Nagendra Nath Ojha is the All India General Secretary of the BKMU, apart from being a member of the CPI’s national executive. The other proposer, former MLA Ram Naresh Pandey, is president of the BKMU’s Bihar unit.

In fact, Ojha had talked about such a possibility as early as January this year. While responding to a question on the sidelines of CPI’s national council meet at Hyderabad, he had said that the party could have a president in the future. No one had picked up the issue at that time. Even the CPI leadership, then led by Bardhan, did not find it necessary to clarify the party’s position on this controversial issue.

The CPI’s constitution barred Bardhan from continuing as the party’s general secretary after the party congress in Patna concluded, and by many accounts, Bardhan appeared reluctant to give up the party’s reins.

It is difficult to say who among the party’s top leaders actually backed the amendments. But once this proposal became public, many delegates saw it as an internal coup and all have subsequently remained tight-lipped about it. What can be said for sure is that had the new post been created, it would have gone straight to Bardhan.

Way back in 1989, as the Soviet Union had started collapsing, the CPI had amended its constitution at its Calcutta party congress to limit the tenure of the general secretary to a maximum of three terms. This change in the CPI constitution had been done with the realisation that unlimited stints could potentially turn the general secretary into ‘a super authority’. Later, at the Hyderabad party congress in 1992, it was decided to increase the general secretary’s tenure to

a maximum of four terms. And, by the time the Patna party congress was held, Bardhan had completed four full terms as general secretary. He had taken over from Indrajit Gupta in 1996, who had vacated the post to join the United Front Government as Union Home Minister.

It was therefore inevitable that Bardhan had to go as general secretary. The only way he could retain power over the party was if a post could be created over and above the general secretary.

In this backdrop, as soon as the proposed amendment became public, delegates began whispering that the 87-year-old Bardhan was looking to remain in power at all cost, instead of making a graceful exit.

In the previous party congress in 2008, when Bardhan started his last term in office, Sudhakar Reddy was made deputy general secretary. This move had set to rest all speculation about who would succeed the veteran CPI leader. Ever since 1986 it has been a routine practice in

the CPI that the deputy general secretary takes over from the general secretary. Thus, Indrajit Gupta first became deputy general secretary before replacing Rajeswar Rao as general secretary in 1992. Bardhan, too, had a brief stint as deputy general secretary before the baton was passed on to him by Indrajit Gupta in 1996.

Thus, as the Patna party congress approached, Reddy was seen as the natural choice for the top slot. Even as some CPI leaders thought differently, none came out in public, and any differences of opinion remained confined to the top leadership of the party.

A senior secretariat member of the CPI confirms that before the Patna party congress started, the CPI’s leadership was divided between those who wanted a change of guard and those who favoured the continuation of the old regime. “But since the party constitution came in the way of Bardhan, different ways were adopted to limit the authority of the new general secretary,” he says.

The issue came out in the open on the penultimate day of the party congress, when two national secretaries of the CPI, Atul Kumar Anjan and Shamim Faizi, told mediapersons that of the several amendments proposed by delegates, one related to amending the party constitution and creating a new post of party president. The CPI leaders, however, added that the party congress was yet to take a final decision on this amendment. They also said that the amendment had been moved as per the procedure laid down in the constitution, which says that only such amendments may be taken up for consideration by the party congress that are moved two months in advance.

Even as delegates were absorbing the significance of this announcement, Sudhakar Reddy was working to thwart this surreptitious attempt at denying him the party’s top slot. Reddy’s low profile often disguises the level of control he exercises over the party organisation, and he handled the situation in his characteristic cool manner inside the Shri Krishna Memorial Hall—venue of the Patna party congress.

According to a party veteran present inside the hall, “Reddy outright rejected the amendments moved by Ojha and Pandey, pointing out that SA Dange had been made chairman under special circumstances in 1962 and the post was abolished after his expulsion from the party in 1981. Thereafter, the party had decided through a resolution adopted in the subsequent party congress that there would be no chairman [that is, a post above that of general secretary]. Circumstances are different now, and reviving the post of chairman or president and revoking that resolution of the party would be violative of the constitution.” No one, neither Ojha and Pandey nor any of their allies, stood up in support of the amendment, while it was trashed by Reddy, and the issue died down as quickly as it had come up.

Indeed, Sripad Amrit Dange, one of the founding members of the CPI, was the first and last chairman of the party. Two years before the CPI split in 1964, this post had been created so that the two internal factions in the party could divide the posts of chairman and general secretary among themselves—a device meant to prevent a formal division of the party. It so happened that after the death of Ajoy Ghosh in 1962, EMS Namboodiripad (representing the faction that eventually moved out of the CPI and formed the CPM) became the general secretary of the CPI and the post of chairman was handed over to Dange, who represented the other faction. After the split in 1964, Dange remained with the CPI as its chairman. In 1981, he was expelled from the party after he refused to submit to the new tactical line adopted at the CPI’s party congress at Bathinda in 1981, which required the CPI to tow the CPM’s line.

The immediate reason for his expulsion, however, was a greeting message he sent during the foundation conference of the All India Communist Party (AICP), a Left party that was formed at the behest of his daughter Rosa Dange. The AICP became an obscure entity soon after it came into being. After Dange, the CPI abolished the post of chairman.

AB BardhanCPISudhakar Reddy