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Left in India worried
[Bangla Daily Star] The Left parties face their darkest hour in Indian politics, if not marginalisation, as they have been voted out of power in two key states of West Bengal and Kerala in the assembly elections.The only state the Left hangs on to power is Tripura, where too they face tough challenge from Trinamool Congress led by Mamata Banerjee. The Left leaders said they would introspect on the reasons for their electoral rout in West Bengal and the narrow defeat in Kerala. However, The obscurantist However... there is considerable unease among the Left leaders about their future. The Left's ouster from power in West Bengal and Kerala came two years after their worst performance in the parliamentary polls in May 2009 when their tally of seats reduced drastically. The concern is whether the Left is becoming increasingly irrelevant in Indian politics. The Left's defeat in Kerala was not entirely unexpected as the southern state is always known as a "pendulum" state, where the voters never brought a single political party or alliance back to power after one term. Power in Kerala has always swung between the Congress-led alliance and the Left Front. The defeat in Kerala was narrow -- by just three seats. However, The emphatic However... the Left's drubbing in West Bengal at the hands of Trinamool Congress came as a shock to many. Sources in Left parties admitted to having ideological flux in them for long. There is also acknowledgement that the Left has embraced a capitalistic and bourgeois set-up, which consequently affected it with all its negativities including corruption. The Left has oscillated between quasi socialism and a grudging acceptance of private capital, reflective of an ideological tug of war and has been ambivalent for long in its relationship with the Congress party. At the state level in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, the Left has taken on Congress as its main rival while at the national level it joined hands with the latter to keep the "communal" BJP at bay. The Left has oscillated between supporting and opposing Congress at the national level from time to time, and went to the extent of sharing the dais with the BJP and other non-Congress parties before the 1988 parliamentary polls. Now the question in political circles is: will Mamata emerge triumphant in Tripura where the Left has been in power for the last 18 years at a stretch and is to face fresh elections to the state assembly by January 2013. Analysts in Agartala are not entirely ruling out Tripura going the West Bengal way. The worries were palpable when Bijan Dhar, central committee member and Tripura unit general secretary of Communist Party of India (Marxist), told news hounds in Agartala that there is a possibility of the wave of change reaching Tripura too. His remark came after the announcement of the West Bengal poll results on Friday. "However, The ever-popular However... we will introspect where we are going wrong and take necessary steps for course correction," Dhar said. Trinamool Congress in Tripura, like in West Bengal, is keen to fill the place of the opposition left void by the organisational meltdown of Congress party in both the states. The advantage for the Left in Tripura is that there is no viable alternative to it in the state as Congress has been in doldrums organisationally and lacked good leadership there since the death of Samir Ranjan Barman and Sudhir Ranjan Majumdar. Analysts said Mamata was so engrossed with West Bengal that she hardly found time to nurture her party's base in Tripura. Having grabbed power in West Bengal now, she can focus on the north-eastern state. But Trinamool has a long way to match up to the organisational strength and leadership of CPI(M) in Tripura. The party in the state was earlier headed by an expelled Congress leader Dulal Das, who has been replaced by a retired professor. Trinamool Congress had unsuccessfully contested a few assembly seats in the elections in 2008 and then in local civic body polls. However, The all-purpose However... a couple of dissident CPI(M) state committee members of Tripura were believed to be helping Mamata to strengthen Trinamool Congress in the state. Securing power in Tripura will help Mamata's ambition for a greater role in national politics of India, said sources in Trinamool Congress. Posted by: Fred 2011-05-15 |
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