Click to play videoIn the recent Lok Sabha Assembly by-polls, the Left Front faced some major defeats. While in West Bengal the Left Front managed to win one out of the 10 seats, in Kerala it lost all the three seats. After these successive poll losses Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's Cabinet colleagues told him on Wednesday that the party should prepare to sit in the Opposition as the people have lost faith in communism. They suggested Bhattacharjee to call for early polls before the margins of defeat become even wider.
This brings us to the question of the day that was asked on CNN-IBN show Face The Nation: Calls for Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to resign: Is the Left in India facing oblivion?
To try and answer the question on the panel of experts were: CPI-M leader Nilotpal Basu; Editor-in-Chief The Pioneer; Chandan Mitra; Trinamool Congress spokesperson Derek O'Brien and National Affairs Editor CNN-IBN Diptosh Majumdar.
At the start of the show, 87 per cent of those who voted in said yes, the Left in India is facing oblivion while 13 per cent disagreed.
Bad Times For Left Front
Opening the debate, Nilotpal Basu said that of the 10 seats that went to polls in West Bengal seven were already with the Congress-Trinamool combine.
“Victory and defeat are a part of a democratic country. The Constitution is there to decide how long a government can be on in a state,” he said.
“If the people give their verdict we will definitely not act as a limpid and go. Elections do not decide the final future of a political party,” Basu said defending his party.
Reacting to Basu’s explanation, Derek O'Brien said that the CPI-M is in a complete denial mood.
He alleged that the Left Front has “butchered the state” for the last 32 years and said in their governance “the police force, the education system, the health system etc. were in disarray”.
“The Left has lost all its credibility in these elections,” O'Brien said.
Basu objected to O'Brien’s allegations and said he is completely rubbishing the history.
“For the last 32 years people have voted us to power years after years because of our good track record,” he emphasised.
Left Fails To Woo Voters
Joining the debate, Chandan Mitra said there is no denying that the Left Front has many convincing victories in West Bengal and Kerala in the past.
“Because of being in power for too long in Bengal a kind of arrogance and complacency has come to the Left. It is because of this arrogance that even after a spectacular victory in 2006, the Left was routed in 2009 polls,” Mitra explained.
“Today in Bengal the power is with the Left Front but the authority has shifted to Mamata Banerjee which is why leaders in the Left Front are saying that they don’t have authority to continue in the office,” he said.
Basu also accepted that the Left failed to convince the voters about their position in the recent by-polls.
“There are many things we can do and want to do for the state but we are not able to do because of the undemocratic way the Opposition conducts itself,” he said.
Attacking the Opposition, Basu alleged that the Trinamool Congress is supporting the Maoists who are a threat to the country’s peace.
Replying to these allegations, O'Brien questioned: “Why is the Left Front not banning the Maoists then?”
Diptosh Majumdar explained the reason behind Left’s poll defeat and said it came to power on its land reforms agenda but in 2007-08 it was clear that they were not following it.
“The land reform issue has hit the Left the hardest and there is no way the Left can recapture the grounds in West Bengal,” he pointed out.
Future Of Left in India
Taking the debate further, Mitra said that if you think on the long-term basis the Left’s role as a major political entity in India is bound to decline in the future.
“They (Left Front) may survive and do a good job in the NGO sector by doing a lot of things for the down-trodden people, tribal etc. because they are very good at it,” he suggested.
O'Brien, however, refused to accept that the Left has done any good for the deprived sector.
“The Left has neglected the issues of hunger, malnutrition, illiteracy,” he said quoting Amartya Sen.
Concluding the debate, Basu accepted that the Left Front has committed some mistakes in the state and said they will soon rectify them.
For the ongoing violence in Lalgarh and other parts of West Bengal, the CPI-M leader said, “We have faced the Maoists in the past and we will face them even now.”
Results of the SMS/web poll:
Yes – 88 per cent
No – 12 per cent
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