Dipankar Bose
The 2014 general elections had many shades — from spectacular wins and whopping margins of BJP candidates to the humbling of Congress party, from a shift from the traditional voting patterns to a distinct aspirational mandate and many more. But, among several highs and lows – there is also the near decimation of the Left in the country’s politics.
Such was the level of rejection that with just nine seats in its kitty from three states, the CPI(M) is two short of the criteria which gave it the national party status for years.
The beleaguered CPI(M) is now desperately trying to use the two Independents — who contested the elections from Kerala as part of the Left Democratic Front — to build a case for retaining its national party status. One of the many benchmarks set by the Election Commission for according national party status to a political party, is 11 seats in the Lok Sabha from at least three states.
But, it seems the party is content with its statusquo after the initial analysis of the results. In the first Politburo meeting of the party where the initial round of post-mortem of the results was done, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat clung to the party’s age-old explanation of collective responsibility.
After the meeting, Karat said the results would be analysed “seriously” and that another meeting of the Politburo has been called on June 6, followed by the Central Committee meeting for another two days to review the dismal results of West Bengal and Kerala.
The party’s West Bengal state secretary Biman Bose only echoed his general secretary’s words.
Reacting to Nitish Kumar’s resignation and Sonia Gandhi’s offer to quit her party post after poll debacles of the JD(U) and Congress respectively, Bose said, “Sonia, Nitish are leaders of bourgeois parties. They can have the leadership responsible for defeat, but not CPI(M) which believes in collective responsibility.”
Incidentally, Bose’s views have been strongly contested by his own party colleagues. They say, Leninist principle is of collective function, but individual responsibility. If the leadership lacks energy, it shows in the cadre. Several party leaders in West Bengal, who want heads to roll in the CPI(M) after the poll drubbing, feel the present day cadre of the party has hardly seen the kind of struggle on which the Left movement grew in the country, especially in Bengal – it is hence, soft.
And Alimuddin Street mandarins had no way out but to swallow the bitter pill and say most of those who protested against the present leadership, were expelled from the party and if anybody has anything to say, there are “other democratic forums within the party” where they can raise it.
But, several leaders in the party have disputed the proper functioning of these so-called “other democratic forums” and alleged that repeated attempts to raise voices or contrary views within the party have always been either stifled or snubbed.
CPI(M)’s initial reaction that the party had increased its tally in Kerala and won with higher margins in the two seats in Tripura shows the level of disconnect. Karat had attributed the nose dive of the party’s vote share in Bengal to the violence and rigging of the ruling Trinamool Congress. The vote share of the Left has dropped from 43 per cent in 2009 to a little over 29.6 per cent this time.
When the first winds of change started blowing away the Left’s formidable bastion after the 2009 general elections and the combine’s Lok Sabha tally fell to 15 from 35, the CPI(M) and its allies had behaved in a similar fashion, only the element of Trinamool rigging was not there as Mamata Banerjee’s party was still in the opposition.
The routine round of meetings had started happening after the drubbing in the 2011 Assembly elections and the brainstorming in Hyderabad, Delhi and elsewhere called for a “rectification drive” in the party. It proved futile, beyond some mere window dressing.
The political and organisational reports of the party prescribed its cadres and leaders to go for an intense mass connection drive, but no effective solution was offered for the continuing erosion of the CPI(M)’s support base.
Many leaders of the party feel, the June deliberations in Delhi this time, will again produce similar prescriptions with no actual remedial effects.
The CPI(M) leadership seems to only be in denial that its ideology no longer appeals to the youth, its programmes does not fit into the new generations’ aspirations and there have been cries for changes at the top, a state committee member from West Bengal says.
What the CPI(M) general secretary did not mention after the first Politburo analysis of the results, was the ground situation of his home state Kerala where the party performed lower than its expectations.
Despite pinning down the Congress-led state government on a corruption scandal, the Left could win only six of the 20 seats. M A Baby, a sitting MLA and the only Politburo member to contest the Lok Sabha elections, lost and even failed to lead in the Assembly segment he represents.
In Bengal, like in 2011, this time there was no anti-incumbency factor bugging the Left Front.
Instead, Alimuddin Street mandarins were hoping to benefit from the four-way split in votes between them, the Congress, the BJP and the Trinamool Congress.
But, on the ground during the campaigns, the Left didn’t rise to the occasion as Mamata did. While Mamata went hammer and tongs at Modi, the Left preferred to be subtle, trying its hand with a lowkey door-to door campaign strategy. Moreover, the leadership failed to understand that people were extremely wary of accepting the Left’s 11-party alternative at the Centre and was planning to shun them.
Apart from these, Modi’s appeal to the people in the 18-28 age bracket that only a BJP-led government could create jobs for them assuaged the youth’s concern. Although the CPM tried to highlight the Trinamool government’s failure in bringing industry to Bengal, the Saradha Ponzi scam and the mismanagement in the teachers’ selection process, it never had anything in its kitty to offer to the young voters as well as the huge chunks of minorities in the state.
Mamata successfully consolidated around 28 per cent minority voters and also a sizeable section of floating voters behind her with her persistent anti-Modi stand. The BJP surge did not affect Trinamool Congress, but pushed the Left in its political wilderness.
Political analysts say, Prakash Karat’s strong (some put it as blind) anti-Congress line failed to make any mark on the Left’s supporters who knew Congress was going to lose the 2014-elections anyway. The real challenge was the BJP and CPI(M) was seen nowhere in the contest.
People who had voted for the Left even in 2011, thought that doing so this time would be a waste because the Left would neither be part of any ruling coalition at the Centre nor become a formidable opposition against the Trinamool in Bengal.
The election results have brought with it a big threat for the Left and more so for CPI(M) – that of losing its relevance in the country’s politics. The grey-haired Politburo has to come up with a remedy soon or face existential crisis.
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