It was not a shocking development, if at all, just a surprise to some that the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) recently decided to show the door to some of its top leaders. The Karat couple, Prakash and Brinda, Manik Sarkar, Surjya Kanta Mishra, Subhashini Ali and G Ramakrishnan, were ousted from the party’s Politburo.

The logic for dropping them from the Politburo was the party’s rule of replacing those over 75 years with the younger generation of leaders. However, at the same time, an exception was made for Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who is 79, making it clear that it was sort of a coup that was enacted during the CPM’s Madurai session earlier this month.

The step was in the making for some time. It was probably required too, considering their dogmatic style of functioning had become an obstacle to the CPM reinventing itself in Indian politics. Prakash Karat, in particular, was seen as the man responsible for the party’s sudden decline from the all-time high to its free fall. Karat was at the helm as the CPM general secretary for a decade between 2005 and 2015. During this period, the CPM was ousted from power in its bastion, West Bengal, in 2011, followed by its rejection by........

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