Recently, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) decided to stay out of the coordination committee of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance or INDIA, although the party has representatives in other lesser important panels of the bloc, the campaign committee and the social media committee. According to reports, the party-state leadership of West Bengal and Kerala forced the central party leadership to stay out of the coordination committee.
The Left party is a constituent of INDIA bloc but at the same time, it doesn’t want to be a part of the coordination panel of the bloc. This reflects the state of confusion within the party. This ambiguous stand of the party isn’t going to benefit it electorally. It would be better for the Marxist party to pull itself out of the INDIA bloc.
INDIA alliance is harming CPM in West Bengal
The pictures of the party’s national general secretary Sitaram Yechury along with Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee during the meetings of the INDIA bloc didn’t go well with the ground workers and supporters of the Marxist party. It is because the rank and file of the Left has been facing attacks by TMC-affiliated people on the ground. The “liberals” and the Left-leaning intelligentsia of the country may continue to support TMC as a “secular party” but for the common Left workers and supporters proudly holding the red flag having hammer and sickle, TMC remains an anti-democratic party.
That’s why they have always opposed Mamata Banerjee-led TMC and have faced attacks for this staunch opposition since the TMC came to power in 2011. Since then, many Left workers and supporters have been killed and many houses have been burnt. Not only this, even before the change of power in 2011, many Left workers and supporters were killed by Maoists in Jungle Mahal, when parts of it were under the influence of Maoists. The CPM had then alleged that there was a secret alliance between Maoists and the TMC. It has to be mentioned that Jungle Mahal comprises four districts of the state — West Midnapore, Jhargram, Bankura and Purulia.
The Left strategists shouldn’t forget that it is this staunch anti-TMC stand that forced a large section of its support base to shift towards the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after the 2016 state assembly elections, where the strategy of CPM leaders to align with its once-arch rival Congress failed miserably. However, despite all of this, after the BJP failed to win the 2021 state assembly elections, a section of the Left supporters started to return to the Left. This was evident in the recently concluded three-tier panchayat elections, marred with strong allegations of rigging by the ruling TMC. But the elections too showed the limitations of the Left. Many Left supporters are still not ready to return as they still view the BJP as the main Opposition against the TMC. And CPM’s presence in the INDIA camp along with TMC is only likely to prevent the Left’s slow resurgence in the state.
It has to be mentioned that both the rank and file of the party and the state unit are openly supporting the Enforcement Directorate (ED) investigations against TMC’s second-in-command Abhishek Banerjee and the CBI investigations against the TMC leaders for the various scams, including the teachers’ recruitment scam, which has shocked the common people of the state. The Left leaders and supporters don’t see these investigations as a “vendetta of the Modi government” — as alleged by the TMC and many other constituents of the INDIA bloc.
Also, the CPM has lost a section of its base to the TMC in the last 15 years. If the Left has to get back its lost ground in its erstwhile bastion, it has to oppose the TMC tooth and nail on the ground, without listening to the advice offered by the “liberals” to patch up with the TMC to defeat the “larger evil” BJP. Until and unless the CPM regains its strength in West Bengal, it will remain a marginal force in national politics.
Apart from that, the alliance with the Congress isn’t benefitting the Left. Most of the Left voters generally don’t hesitate to vote for the Congress candidates while a section of the latter’s voters don’t vote for the Left candidates — a main reason why the Congress got more seats than the Left in the 2016 state assembly elections. The bitter truth is that the alliance has mostly benefited the Congress. Despite not having an organisational base across the state, barring two or three districts, it has been seen that the grand old party often demands more seats from the CPM. Also, there have been reports that the TMC is likely to allot at least two seats to the Congress from the state in the upcoming elections and the grand old party’s central leadership — for whom defeating BJP anyhow remains the topmost priority — may not be averse to this tie-up.
Alliance with Congress not helping Left in Tripura
This year, the two arch-rivals — CPM and Congress — came together for the first time to fight the state assembly polls with the objective of defeating the BJP in the Northeast state. Although the CPM didn’t gain much, the Congress, with the help of Left voters, was able to open its account and bagged three seats with a vote share of 8 per cent. Just like in the case of West Bengal, the Congress, present within some pockets of the state, benefitted as a result of the alliance while the Left didn’t.
Tripura was ruled by the Left for 35 years from 1978 to 1988 and from 1993 to 2018. This state may not be that significant in national politics but for the Left, this is a very significant one. This has been a model state for the Left as it played a key role in ending decades-old insurgency here. Now, according to reports, the Congress leaders of the state are against any tie-up with the Left. They are ready for a tie-up if the Left cedes its space to the grand old party in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls and this would be a suicidal attempt for the Left. To regain the lost base, the Left has to become more active on the ground in the Northeast state. The short-term strategy of forging alliances with old foes is unlikely to work for the Marxist party.
INDI alliance not going to help in other states too
In Kerala — the only state ruled by the Left — the CPM’s presence in the INDIA camp at the national level, while fighting against Congress in the state, may not hurt now. But in the long run, this ambiguous stand may prove to be harmful as it’s going to create a negative image among the party’s rank and file, who see Congress as an arch-rival.
In its obsession to defeat the “communal” BJP, the Left party has lost its ground in pockets of the crucial Hindi belt, where it had a presence once. It used to even win some seats on its own strength in states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar both in the assembly and the Lok Sabha elections. But the wrong strategy to support the socialist parties to defeat the BJP in these states cost the CPM and the Left heavily.
The only Hindi-belt state where the CPM still has some individual strength is Rajasthan, where last time, it was able to win 2 seats on its own. The state is going to face elections later this year. The ruling Congress, internally divided due to factionalism, has been facing anti-incumbency but the soft stand of the CPM vis-à-vis the grand old party is only likely to harm the Marxist party. It had won 3 seats in the 2008 state elections when the Congress returned to power but in the 2013 state elections, it lost all the seats when the BJP stormed to power amid the strong anti-Congress wave, but the CPM didn’t gain from this anti-incumbency then.
Instead of relying on only drawing strategy to defeat the BJP, it is time for the CPM Central Committee to have a deep thought searching answer for the party’s failure to grow in the Hindi belt and other parts of the country and also to correctly analyse the factors responsible for the decline of the party in its erstwhile bastions like West Bengal and Tripura. The Left leadership shouldn’t forget that the defeat of the BJP at the Centre isn’t going to benefit the Left as the largest beneficiary would be the Congress in most parts of the country and the TMC in West Bengal.
The author is a political commentator and tweets @SagarneelSinha. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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