Left forced into introspection

The Left was forced to eat humble pie following an astounding victory of the Trinamool Congress and Congress alliance in West Bengal and of the Congress-led UDF in Kerala.

The strength of the four Left parties is likely to drop to around 24 in the Lok Sabha, a sharp fall from their all-time best of 61 in the previous house. It has also shattered the hope of CPI-M General Secretary Prakash Karat and CPI’s A B Bardhan of being able to impose their agenda on national politics.

The trend is ominous for the Left in the coming Bengal assembly election, just two years away. The writing on the wall was not missed by Mamata Banerjee, main architect of the opposition victory there. She has promptly demanded the assembly poll be proponed, as the ruling Left has lost the popular mandate.

There is trouble brewing within the Left parties as well. In West Bengal, the result has sent a shock wave through the party organisation and there is speculation in party circles about chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee stepping down. In Kerala, the CPI(M), after three long years of internecine battle with their own chief minister V S Achuthanandan, was getting ready to sack him. But both might be put on hold, as a senior party leader noted.

According to him, Buddhadev might offer to resign but the party won’t accept it. “One does not know where the buck will stop. If we start accepting his resignation, there wound be demands for more heads to roll,” he says. A relatively less bruised CPI is not that concerned. “We don’t have any heads to roll, as we are not heading any government in the country,” says Pallab Sengupta, member of the party’s central executive and national council.

As the trends indicate, the Left is likely to get around 15 in West Bengal. Last time, it had 35 of the 42 seats in the state. In Kerala, the Left is likely to secure just four of the 20 seats. In Tripura, they retained their two seats and picked up one each in Orissa and Tamil Nadu. The CPI and CPI(M) together fielded 131 candidates through the country. The ambitious attempt was made to make their presence felt in states other than these three traditionally Left ones. It didn’t succeed.

There are questions being asked within the party circle on the downfall and already there are indications of brewing unrest in the ranks. Subhas Chakrabarty, the CPI(M) enfant terrible, has already pointed fingers at the central leadership for the setback. Without naming Prakash Karat, he said, “It is a fallout of the national policy.” His mentor, Jyoti Basu, has said nothing after the debacle. But he had warned of poor performance by the Left much ahead of this election.