Click to play videoOne of the biggest stories of the General Elections 2009 was the historic defeat of the Left front in West Bengal. Withdrawing support from the UPA and supporting the Third Front says the Bengal unit of the Communist party of India (CPM). There is an increasing pressure within the party to fix responsibility for the utter decimation of the party in the polls. Is party General Secretary Prakash Karat facing a serious rebellion?
On the show The Verdict< CNN-IBN debated if Karat step down after the defeat.
On the panel of experts to debate the issue were the Central Committee Member of CPI (M) and President, AIDWA Subhashini Ali, Spokesperson, Leader, Trinamool Congress leader Derek O'Brien and MD of O(x)us Fund Management Surjit Bhalla.
The Left Front has ruled in West Bengal for 32 years. Even in 1984, when a sympathy wave in favour of Congress swept across the nation, West Bengal still held on to the CPM and the party won 26 seats in West Bengal. But it has been decimated in the just concluded elections and turned to a mere shadow of itself. Left party members are stepping up pressure to figure out what or who caused the defeat.
Key amongst the theories that brought the downfall is the idea that Left's withdrawal of support from UPA and its aligning with the Third Front hindered its chances.
Will Prakash Karat then step down or be forced to step down as a sign of moral responsibility? Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, West Bengal Chief Minister and veteran CPM leader stayed away from the politburo meeting. Biman Bose and other Left leaders reportedly came down heavily on the tactical errors of the party in the elections.
The initial results of the SMS/Web Poll showed that 81 per cent of the people who voted in said that Karat should step down after the party's defeat, while a minority 19 per cent disagreed saying no, he must continue.
Scratch underneath the surface
Subhashini Ali denied that there was any truth in the theory that Karat's moves and subsequent loss for the Left had caused an anti-Prakash Karat wave.
"You know, what you are saying is what is being touted here and there but the problem is that very few people take the trouble to try and really find out how the CPI-M really functions and how it arrives at decisions. You are so off the mark that you cannot even imagine. The kinds of things that you are imagining within this party are just not happening there. It's not that they are not concerned about what happened, it's not that they are not serious about trying to remedy any mistakes that we might have made," said Subhashini Ali.
Subhashini also reiterated that everything is discussed threadbare in the party folds and no decisions are imposed. Unanimous is the way the consensus goes and all decisions are collective she said, leaving no trace of blame on Karat.
Subhashini also said that she would much rather discuss the future of the Left after the defeat than Karat's place in the party.
Prakash Karat: Problem or solution?
It was Prakash Karat's decision to withdraw support to the UPA government as well as his decision to go with the Third Front. So is he to be blamed for the shameful and cataclysmic defeat that ensued? So is Prakash Karat the problem, really?
Subhashini Ali refuted those charges and said that it was incorrect. "No one person takes decisions in our party. As a responsible member of the Central Committee, I can only reiterate that every single decision taken in the last five years has been discussed and debated threadbare and finally resolved in a collective fashion. This kind of things may be happening in other parties, I do not know. Trying to fix responsibility on one person and making one person the scapegoat, is not the way our party functions and nor is it about to happen."
But why just blame the central leadership for this? Is it not the failure of the ground situation, or of the industrialisation programme, failure of the equitable land distribution and acquisition programme?
Surjit Bhalla, a long time Left watcher, said given that all the decisions were made collectively, the entire central leadership of the CPM should resign. "That is what really responsibility and accountability is about," he said adding that if that means the entire leadership has to resign then so be it.
He said that the Left worst ever performance comes close on the heels of its best performance ever.
"The 20 seats of the CPM and CPI that they got this time is second only to the sixteen seats that they had won in 1952, the year of the first election," said Bhalla.
He also said that it is also a party that is operational only in two states and therefore should be stripped of the badge of being a national party.
"This is a party that has portraits of Stalin in their headquarters. But to my knowledge, no where in the world except in North Korea and perhaps Cuba (even that is now changing), is any communist party of any substance. Therefore, what are they doing here? The electoral results are now suggesting that they are fast on the way to becoming history, unless they reinvent themselves like the Italian communists did and then perhaps there is a future.
Reinvent or perish
"We are not about to fade away, or to dry up and blow away. We feel that in the present situation, we are going to be the voice of the very many people who are otherwise not going to have a voice at all," reiterated Subhashini.
She pointed out to the fact that the UPA had been publicly saying that the reason for India not faring badly economically while the world suffered a slowdown is that the NREGA and the nationalised structure of banks helped.
"Certainly, if the NREGA and that the banks not being privatised are because the Left is there. We are not irrelevant," she said.
Derek O'Brien did not agree that Left keeps a certain voice alive that keeps the public conscience throbbing.
"27 ministers in the West Bengal have lost, including industries Minister Nirupam Sen. Buddhadeb Bhattarcharjee has prevailed by the skin of his teeth in Jadavpur. So their irrelevance is a very easy thing to decide," said Derek O'Brien. He also said that more people would vote for the controversial coach of IPL cricket team Kolkata Knight Riders, John Buchanan than they would for Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.
Fixing the blame
Subhashini Ali refused to pin the blame on any one person. "This whole thing about the personalisation of politics makes it trivial," she said.
Is it not right then, that the Left has been imposing the JNU brand of Leftism on the grassroots level politics? The Left's views on the Indo-US nuclear deal, the Security Council resolutions on Iran, on foreign political issues and on neo-liberal economics are very theoretical with very little ground reality in them. On most issues, the Left has theoretical and esoteric views; there is no comprehension on the ground. Is the capture of the Left by intellectual elite who are far removed from the people affecting it?
Subhashini disagreed that the common man neither understood nor agreed with the Left's lofty ideas. The people understand and do care about the issues that the Left has been fighting for. Subhashini said that the Left was waiting for the Congress to err.
Ironically, the bone of contention with the UPA, the Indo-US nuclear deal was not at all brought up by the Left in the election campaign.
Crediting the Left
Bhalla refused to accept the earlier claim of Subhashini that the Left be credited for the ideas of bank nationalisation and NREGA that won the UPA the elections.
The bank nationalisation was done by Indira Gandhi in 1969 and the NREGA was a scheme started in Maharashtra in 1973. "The ideas that these were the two policies that won the elections for the UPA or that they were the brain wave of the Left are completely erroneous," said Bhalla.
Reading the leaves in Bengal cup
Is the vote against Left in Bengal really a vote for Mamata Banerjee? Are the people of Bengal really in favour and mood to bring in Mamata next to replace Left's politicians? A number of people have said that they voted for Mamata's Trinamool congress party in the national elections but will not vote for the Trinamool in the assembly elections because the idea of Mamata as a Chief Minister does not go down too well with many people.
Derek O'Brien said he isn't buying that one because Mamata is seen as a symbol of hope in Bengal, especially 32 years after the Communist rule.
Of the Left, he said, "Do these guys have a conscience? Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had chai in his office the next day after his men had shot 14 people in Nandigram a day before. If the Left has a conscience, the entire politburo must resign and in Bengal the entire ministry must go. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee must himself resign."
So if the nationalisation of banks or the NREGA is not Left’s baby, nor does it score on the conscience issue, what is Left's real standing?
"I am not saying we are responsible for the nationalisation of banks or the NREGA. I am saying that the Congress has been pitching its entire election programme on its Bharat Nirmaan programme, which has certainly got many elements for which we were responsible in contributing to," said Subhashini.
"We certainly opposed the privatisation of banks and the introduction of foreign direct investments into the Indian banking system and the Indian financial system," added Subhashini.
Attack of the intellectual elite?
Have the intellectuals distanced the party from the real people?
Subhashini disagreed and discarded the theory as a very simplistic one.
"Our central committee is composed of people from all states and it has different kinds of people in the committee," said Subhashini.
What can one say of a central committee where many leaders have not fought an election? Prakash Karat has never fought an election and Somnath Chatterjee has himself said that Karat lives in an ivory tower.
Subhashini refused to comment on a comment by Somnath Chatterjee.
"We have many great and tall leaders in our party who have never fought an election. Comrade B T Ranbir has never fought an election. But does that mean he is not fit to be a leader of the party. We do not believe that way," she defended.
But the people's verdict on the issue was clear.
Final results of the SMS/Web poll: Should Prakash Karat step down after the defeat?
Yes: 84 per cent
No: 16 per cent
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