Yechury plays down dissidence

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, JAN. 7. The CPI(M) politburo member, Mr. Sitaram Yechury, today said the West Bengal State Committee was ``seized of'' certain functional/organisational issues raised by one of the marxist leaders, Mr. Saifuddin Chaudhury, who has demanded a ``radical departure'' from the Soviet model.

The ``dissident'' members, who come under the West Bengal committee, had been asked to explain by the State unit and ``let us see what they have to say on the matter,'' Mr. Yechury said, responding to newsmen's queries, on the sidelines of the 10th All-India Conference of the Students Federation of India (SFI) which commenced here.

Asked about the larger issue of inner-party culture raised by Mr. Chaudhury, Mr. Yechury quipped, ``when it comes to us (the politburo), we will see.''

Disagreeing with the view that there has been a ``decline'' in the SFI movement (student wing of the CPI-M), Mr. Yechury said that on the contrary the membership had swelled in various States.

``The student movement is as potent now as in the past, but the form of expression is undergoing a change with the change in situation,'' Mr.Yechury said. He was adverting to the liberalisation process which had accentuated competition due to a decline in employment opportunities in the Government/traditional sectors, careerism in the bargain and the attendant ``values of consumerism.''

To a question, Mr. Yechury said it was not correct to say the Akil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, BJP's student-wing, was strengthening its hold over the students as even in the recent union elections on many north Indian campuses, the SFI had won including in Himachal Pradesh.

To another query, said it was true that there was a ``rightward shift'' in the Indian polity, but that was what made the role of organisations like the SFI more relevant and challenging now, the issues of immediate concern being unemployment, commercialisation and privatisation of higher education and `communalisation' of the educational process.

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