In an unusually candid admission, the CPI-M blamed corruption and dishonesty among its leaders at the village level for the party's poor show in the recent panchayat elections across the state.
"Not everybody in the CPI-M-controlled zilla parishads, panchayat samitis and gram panchayats is honest. We have corruption in our functioning. Even though they are few in number, we have to find out how this happened," CPI-M state secretary Biman Bose told a party meeting at Sutahata in East Midnapore district on Sunday.
Asserting that Communists do not work for personal gain or to accumulate riches and property, Bose, who is also the Left Front chairman, said many partymen and their family members had done just that which had not gone down well with the people.
Accusing the leaders of party-led village level bodies of arrogance, he said they distributed funds and materials given by the state government for the people as if they were distributing their ancestral wealth.
"Is it their fathers and grandfathers' money they are doling out?" Bose said. He also accused partymen of having grown wealthy over the years at the expense of the Marxist party.
"You did not even have a cycle once, but now you flaunt cars and houses. Where did you get the money? Funds are given for the benefit of the people. You should look at yourselves in the mirror and compare what you were like. What you see reflected in the mirror now is your own blackened and mud-spattered face."
Party workers were supposed to keep in touch with the people 365 days a year, but they had grown detached from them, he said, adding that "sometimes even I fail to keep in touch with comrades."
"We have committed mistakes. We have discussed this at the state committee. We have to rectify them," Bose said.
He also blamed the reverses on the 'informal alliance' of the Congress, the Trinamool Congress, Left opposition party SUCI, Jamiat-e-Islami Hind and others and said added that disunity among Left Front partners were also another contributory factor to the poor show.