'Left lost trust vote, won hearts of Indians'

Have the Left parties damaged their credibility by their behaviour? That's the key issue Karan Thapar raised with the General Secretary of the Communist Party of India, A B Bardhan.

Karan Thapar: Mr Bardhan, the Left parties have failed to stop the Indo-US deal going further and you have lost whatever influence you had with the UPA government. I put it to you. This is a double whammy against your party.

A B Bardhan: We might have lost our influence with the UPA government. But then we have won the hearts of the Indians. We may have lost the vote…trust vote.

Karan Thapar: Do you really believe that you have won the hearts of the Indian people?

A B Bardhan: I not only believe it, I believe it very strongly.

Karan Thapar: Alright, let me question that. I put it to you that not only have you lost the double whammy, what's even worse from your stand point is that you squandered your reputation for integrity and you have badly damaged the belief that the Left is a party that pays attention to the etiquette conventions and the quorum of Parliament. Those were two of the qualities distinguished you from other parties. Now you have been reduced by your own failure to the level of everyone else.

A B Bardhan: Ethical, is it? I think, in Parliament under Manmohan Singh, the most unethical thing that has ever happened.

Karan Thapar: That is an allegation.

A B Bardhan: That is something known to everybody in this country.

Karan Thapar: It has not been proven. That is an allegation. It's an aspersion. You have no facts and you have no figures to back it up.

A B Bardhan: You might have seen how many abstentions, how much of cross-voting. And mind you, none of these were because of the love of politics. All of that was due to the horse-trading.

Karan Thapar: Let me come back to the Left and particularly, to the CPI. The number of times that you have told me in interviews that one of the greatest qualities of the Left is their integrity. What did you do? You, yourself personally endorsed Mayawati as a potential future Prime Minister of this country—a woman against whom there are gross and deeply worrying charges of corruption.

A B Bardhan: I think that this opinion is born out of your prejudice, an elitist prejudice against a Dalit woman who has done good for her country, who has done good for herself.

Karan Thapar: Let me quote from figures given by Mayawati herself when she stood in 2004 from the Akbarpur Lok Sabha constituency. She declared her wealth as Rs 1.66 crore. Three years later when she stood for the Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha, her wealth had gone up, by her own admission to Rs 52 crore, an increase of over three thousand one hundred per cent. Do you believe that this is legitimate?

A B Bardhan: It is not a question of legitimacy.

Karan Thapar: Then what is it a question of?

A B Bardhan: You are talking about wealth that has been accumulated. Every single man in this bourgeoisie politics is a man of crores.

Karan Thapar: But not every single man is endorsed by Mr A B Bardhan. Mayawati was. You are endorsing a woman whose wealth went up by three thousand and one hundred per cent in three years flat.

A B Bardhan: Her people pay her. She is an icon among her people. But then, I am not discussing.

Karan Thapar: Pause a moment. Do you know the kind of explanation Mayawati gives? She says she has made her money by the five and ten rupee donations made by lakhs of her supporters. Are you telling me that you are gullible enough to believe that?

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A B Bardhan: I not only believe it; I have seen it for a fact.

Karan Thapar: You are putting aside your judgment when you say that.

A B Bardhan: I have seen it, in Nagpur—when the Republican Party was there and Dr Ambedkar was alive.

Karan Thapar: Are you telling me that people have paid in five and ten rupees in three years so much money that Mayawati's wealth has gone up by three thousand and one hundred per cent?

A B Bardhan: Do not talk in terms of percentage.

Karan Thapar: Why not?

A B Bardhan: Look here, this is a country in which billionaires have come up…and do you mean to say that all of these have come up by honest labour?

Karan Thapar: Those billionaires were not endorsed by the Left parties for the Prime Minister's post. But Mayawati was. By that way have you not damaged your integrity?

A B Bardhan: I'll tell you. She is the Chief Minister of the biggest state in the country.

Karan Thapar: So is it that she should also have the biggest income?

A B Bardhan: She is the one, who when in fifteen years, nobody could win a majority in UP, won a majority. Is it because she is corrupt, or is it because she has interacted with the people?

Karan Thapar: But the two facts do not cancel out each other out. She may have won a majority but she has a personal income that she cannot account for. Let me put this to you. She calls herself a 'Dalit ki beti'. She does not lose an opportunity to use that phrase. The CBI states that she has over seven crore of unaccounted money, over nine crore of unaccounted fixed assets, over another nine crore of 'benami' property. And perhaps she and her family members have ninety-one bank accounts.

A B Bardhan: We are not meeting here to discuss Mayawati.

Karan Thapar: It's your integrity in supporting her that I am questioning. You have damaged your reputation for honesty, for probity, for uprightness.

A B Bardhan: I have established my integrity by connecting and reaching out to that section of the community that is socially oppressed, economically exploited.

Karan Thapar: But why do you have to do so by endorsing a woman against whom the charges of corruption are so monumental? Are there no other 'Dalits' who are honest and who are more in line with your image?

A B Bardhan: Show me somebody who has this kind of following.

Karan Thapar: You mean to say that there are no honest 'Dalits' in your eyesight?

A B Bardhan: Oh, there are millions and millions of Dalits.

Karan Thapar: So endorse one of them. Why endorse Mayawati who is alleged to be corrupt?

A B Bardhan: Oh, they are the most honest people on the Earth.

Karan Thapar: You have repeatedly said to me in interviews that in politics Caesar's wife should be above suspicion.

A B Bardhan: That is as far as I am concerned.

Karan Thapar: What then about the candidate that you support as a potential future Prime Minister? Should she too not be above suspicion?

A B Bardhan: May I know if the others who are being projected as potential Prime Ministers are pure as white snow?

Karan Thapar: So if the Right projects a bad person, the Left projects an even worse person?

A B Bardhan: No, no. I think she is the best person.

Karan Thapar: Apart from her personal integrity, let's talk about her politics.

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A B Bardhan: You mentioned the CBI. That is a political tool.

Karan Thapar: It is a tool she has used ten times in a year to order investigations in cases. She has faith in it.

A B Bardhan: I also mentioned the CBI because it happens to be the highest agency in our country.

Karan Thapar: You said that Mayawati is the best person to be the Prime Minster of this country. Do you stand by it?

A B Bardhan: I stand by it. At the moment she is the best person.

Karan Thapar: Let's look her politics. Three times she has allied with the BJP to become the Chief Minster of Uttar Pradesh. She has campaigned for Narendra Modi. Surely, that undermines your commitment to secularism.

A B Bardhan: Oh, do you want to talk about secularism?

Karan Thapar: I want to talk about you and Mayawati. By endorsing her, have you not undermined your principles of secularism?

A B Bardhan: Talking of secularism, some of those who voted in the confidence motion in the Parliament, crossed over from the BJP. One of them happens to be accused number 8 from the Babri Masjid demolition case.

Karan Thapar: How can that be the answer to my question?

A B Bardhan: If you are going to the court of equity and justice, you should go with clean hands. You can't sup with the devil and talk about the others.

Karan Thapar: I assume that the Left has clean hands.

A B Bardhan: It has.

Karan Thapar: The point that I am making is that in allying with Mayawati, you have dirtied your hands. Worse still, you have undermined your commitment to secularism. She is not only alleged to be corrupt, she is a friend of Narendra Modi

A B Bardhan: She is no friend of Narendra Modi.

Karan Thapar: She campaigned for him.

A B Bardhan: Oh, you forget all of that.

Karan Thapar: Why forget all of that? Forget, because it is inconvenient?

A B Bardhan: Oh, many inconvenient things have been forgotten by you by the way. You elitist are people with double standards.

Karan Thapar: The elitist may have double standards. But should the Left have them too? You never had them before. Now you have achieved them yourselves.

A B Bardhan: No, I think, in this country, if a new alternative has to be achieved, this is the beginning that we have to make.

Karan Thapar: So you find the lady with the worst record on secularism, worst track record on corruption and promote her as your Prime Ministerial candidate? Is that the way of achieving change?

A B Bardhan: No, she is the lady who has the most backing, today. You will be amazed you see when you see the results of the next elections.

Karan Thapar: Do you know what people who hold the Left values dear, who look up to you personally will say? They will say at best, that the endorsement of Mayawati as opportunism; at worst that he has turned his back on his own principles.

A B Bardhan: I have not turned my back on any principles. I am a man of integrity and my party, as you know not anyone can knock on the doors of our party to bribe them, in order to vote.

Karan Thapar: You know something else? When you were an ally of the Congress, the reins were in your hands. Now that you are an ally of Mayawati, you are dancing to her tunes. Prakash Karat is always the junior person at the press conferences. She dominates and he only plays second fiddle. So not only have you allied with somebody who undermines you, but also even in terms of stature, she dominates.

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A B Bardhan: I do not know in orchestra every body playing the first fiddle.

Karan Thapar: So you are happy to be second?

A B Bardhan: I am happy to be second. I don't mind it.

Karan Thapar: So has the Left demoted itself, quite happily?

A B Bardhan: No, no. I am not talking about the entire Left. But then the Left has an identity of its own; she (Mayawati) has an identity of her own. And the UNPA and the TDP all have an identity of her own.

Karan Thapar: If this were 'Hamlet', she looks like the Prince, the Left looks like the second grave digger. That's the level of unimportance she passes in your direction.

A B Bardhan: You can go on quoting, even I can also quote, but that will not lead us to any results as far as India is concerned.

Karan Thapar: You stubbornly insist that commitment to Mayawati is in line with the Left principles and that it does not undermine your integrity?

A B Bardhan: Let me tell you, the lowest point of democracy that was reached in this country was when the victory of those managers of abstentions, and rigging and vote-crossing and winning, buying votes was done.

Karan Thapar: Quite right, and Now you are suggesting that you are trying equally hard to go to that level by promoting a woman who undermines your integrity, undermines your political principles.

A B Bardhan: Not one of hers could be bought and not one of ours could be bought. You know that well.

Karan Thapar: And that's the fact that unites you?

A B Bardhan: That's the fact that shows our integrity and the fact that we cannot be bought.

Karan Thapar: Lets then talk about the second instance that has shattered the faith that the urban Indians middle class had in the Left…the expulsion of Somnath Chatterjee and your party's endorsement of it. Why did you do this?

A B Bardhan: What's wrong there?

Karan Thapar: I'll tell you what's wrong there. To begin with, the CPM repeatedly said that Somnath Chatterjee had a right to take whatever decisions he thought fit. As soon as he did so, they threw him out of the party. That is contradictory.

A B Bardhan: You do not know the facts. After all, he was elected on a CPM ticket. When he is sitting on the Speaker's chair and functioning as a Speaker, we want him to be impartial, there's no doubt about it. And no one is interfering with that even if we may have had many complaints. But you forget that he was elected Speaker at a time when his party and the entire Left had extended support to the government. But when that support ceased to exist, his position became untenable. This is the matter for the CPI (M), it is a party, and it has its constitution and has its discipline. If anyone disobeys the discipline, it has a right to take a decision.

Karan Thapar: I deliberately gave you the chance to answer that fully without interruption because it is only fair that people get to hear your explanation. Now let me come back and make two points. To begin with, and you know that in any parliamentary democracy it is essential that a speaker does not have imposed upon himself the rules and regulations of his party. That is one way of ensuring his impartiality. But by insisting on doing just that, the CPM and you by implication, because you endorsed it, have not only damaged the institution of the Speaker but you have also strained the Indian democracy. Was that right?

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A B Bardhan: Karan, you are forgetting one thing. They did not take any action against him as far as I know because he did not vote against the trust motion, which the other parties did. They did not issue a whip to him; they did to other party members.

Karan Thapar: They could not have, because he was the Speaker. So it's a strange case to make that they didn't do something that they couldn't do. He wouldn't have voted except in a time.

A B Bardhan: Which itself shows that they had taken into account that he was sitting in the Speaker's chair. But his position had become untenable when their party had ceased support. As far as I know, they had asked him to resign from the Speakership before the issue of the trust vote came up.

Karan Thapar: And he refused?

A B Bardhan: And he did not agree.

Karan Thapar: He has a right to not agree.

A B Bardhan: What right does he have to do so?

Karan Thapar: The CPM said he had a right to take a decision he wants.

A B Bardhan: No, I said it.

Karan Thapar: No, the CPM said it, Prakash Karat said it. They said he had a right to take whatever decision.

A B Bardhan: But he did not take a decision. Every party is expelling those who defied the party whip.

Karan Thapar: He did not take a decision that they wanted him to take. The CPM's position is like that of a child's slogan: "You can entitled to your opinion as long as I agree with It."

A B Bardhan: You are vulgarising everything by bringing it down to that level.

Karan Thapar: But that is the level of argument, you see.

A B Bardhan: The talk that the Speaker is above political parties is all hypocrisy. There are two people sitting in the parliament who had been Speakers, you see. One of them is a Home Minister now and another is a leader of his own party.

Karan Thapar: But Mr Chatterjee wished to set a precedent different from what was set by his predecessors like Shivraj Patil, Manohar Joshi and P A Sangma. . So you should have applauded him for that. By the way, he has already made it clear that he has no intentions of following P A Sangma, Shivraj Patil and Manohar Joshi, making it abundantly clear that he will not seek re-election when he ceases to be Speaker. So you should have applauded him for that.

A B Bardhan: I would have agreed with you if you had condemned the others who sought the a Minister's office after their tenure as Speaker.

Karan Thapar: This is not a 'tu tu main main' between him and the three Speakers. This is about the position of the Left and you got the wrong position.

A B Bardhan: There is section of elitist who have double standards on everything, of judging the Left by one way and others in another.

Karan Thapar: But I am not talking of the elitist. I am talking of the Left and its mis-judgment that has cost you the faith of the Indian middle class.

A B Bardhan: I do not think there was any other option. The CPM has taken a decision and I stand by it.

Karan Thapar: But you have endorsed it.

A B Bardhan: I do not see any other option.

Karan Thapar: I want to quote to you Biman Bose, a senior member of the CPM politburo. He said that Chatterjee was following the Indian constitution while we follow the party constitution. Is it fitting that any that Left party should put its party rules above the Indian constitution. What sort of a democracy are they following?

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A B Bardhan: You forget that the very essence of Parliamentary democracy is the party's system. And here is a man who was elected and nominated by his party. Even as a Speaker, he was.

Karan Thapar: You are not saying anything remarkable. Any person seeking the position of a Spaeker has to be.

A B Bardhan: Did he resign from his party after being elected Speaker?

Karan Thapar: He did not have to.

A B Bardhan: I do not know why we are talking about this.

Karan Thapar: Because this high-handed and arbitrary behaviour of the Left has shattered people's faith in them.

A B Bardhan: Oh, there is this someone who after being in power for four years with the support of the Left now, says that he had felt like a bonded labourer at the hands of the Left. So now any anti-Left propaganda will do.

Karan Thapar: Dr Manmohan Singh does not feature in this. This is about the Left damaging its credibility. This is about the Left damaging its reputation.

A B Bardhan: I do not think the reputation of the Left depends on what it did to Somnath Chatterjee. I respect Somnath Chatterjee as a man, not as a Speaker or as a man expelled by his party.

Karan Thapar: Tens of millions of young Indian between the ages of eighteen and thirty, believe in the Left and its image for cleanness, your image for fair-play and the fact that you abide by the parliamentary decorum, look upon the CPI and the CPR. They look at what you did with Somnath Chatterjee, what you did with Mayawati and think here is a party that we had faith in and has let us down. You have lowered yourself down by your action.

A B Bardhan: You see, Karan, you will be amazed to see how the young will rally behind us. There is this campaign we have launched.

Karan Thapar: You may launch any campaign but the young won't march with you. The response will be missing. They will say that the Left supports the allegedly corrupt Mayawati and kicks out good men like Somnath Chatterjee.

A B Bardhan: Allegedly corrupt? And the already proven corrupt are sitting there.

Karan Thapar: You were considered special. People looked up to you. Bit by your own actions you have lowered yourself to the level of any other party. You have lost the halo and you have lost the shine.

A B Bardhan: You know why I said 'proved corrupt'? Because the Congress had at one time tried to do the same thing by trying to convert a minority into a majority.

Karan Thapar: Your only defence is to compare yourselves to the Congress. You were better than them, now you are as bad as them. Mr Bardhan.

A B Bardhan: No, no. You will see the results.

Karan Thapar: Alright, let time tell.

A B Bardhan: Yes, let time tell. Time is not far off.

Karan Thapar: Thank you very much, indeed.