THE CPI-M which is facing tough electoral battles in West Bengal and Kerala may be losing its national importance if it loses both the polls.
With the party ruling West Bengal for the past three decades is almost written off in the electoral battle of the state with a rejuvenated Mamata Banerjee aligning with the Congress and giving a major threat to the CPI-M led Left Front which has been in the history books of the country for the longest serving political force in Bengal.
The CPI-M which has been running tyrannical and feudal government in Bengal has now to face the music and with the party losing heavily in the last general elections of 2009 and the subsequent Panchayat elections does not see any ray of hope as far as West Bengal is concerned.
The party which has always boasted of about its omnipotent presence in West Bengal has always been challenging other political parties on the administration it has been conducting in that state. Recent uprisings in Singur and Nandigram clearly proved that the CPI-M as a political force is far away from the hearts of the people and the party has always been conducting its rule in Bengal with an iron hand reminiscent of the Stalinistic days of yore in Soviet Russia with the KGB and the Russian military police breathing heavily on the neck of the hapless people. The uprising in Singur and Nandigram proved clearly that the CPI-M of Bengal has been in the Stalinistic mindset for which the party bosses in Delhi sitting in air-conditioned chambers doesn’t have an answer to give.
It has been proven beyond doubt how rich the local party leaders has become and during the people’s uprising in Nandigram the palatial buildings and residences of local CPI-M leaders were razed to ground by the people. The CPI-M which has been showing a sauve and intellectual face in New Delhi has to face the reality of what the local leaders and the cadres were doing on the hapless people in the villages of West Bengal.
The CPI-M which has been in power as the captain of the Left Democratic Front in Kerala for the past five years is now facing a tough electoral battle in this state also. With several issues including the corruption charges of CPI-M state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan to the Chief Minister’s son Arun Kumar haunting the party, the CPI-M is expected to surrender to the Congress led UDF in the ensuing polls of April 13.
While the CPI-M leadership and the pro CPI-M media has been claiming that there is a neck and neck tight battle being carried out in the state as there is no, or marginal anti incumbency wave, the ground reality is something different with the history repeating itself in the state as usual with the Congress led UDF coming back to power as usual in the state where the electorate doesn’t give a repeat to the incumbent government.
The question which has to be addressed here is quite different as to what the CPI-M will be once the party is routed from both Kerala and West Bengal when the election results roll out on May 13. The answer is not that simple as the CPI-M pundits would expect to hear and the party not in power may not be able to support the CPI-M headquarters in New Delhi which will be a tough proposition for the party to continue united.
With the advent of the new generation leadership and the party already facing an identity crisis between the old hawks like the party politbureua members VS Achuthanandan and MK Panthe, the party leadership is already in a dielemma as to how to tide over the crisis.
The party in power and the party without it are entirely different even though the CPI-M pundits may beg to differ and the CPI-M which has always been projecting itself as a poor man’s party has proved beyond doubt that it is for the Tata’s in Singur and for major corporates in West Bengal and with multicrore businessmen like real estate businessman Pharis Aboobacker and tainted lottery king Santiago Martin in Kerala, the party has already drifted away from the poor.
The CPI-M to survive in the political power game may align itself with the Congress at the national level and continue supporting the UPA government may be from outside or even rectifying the earlier Himalayan blunder of not making Jyoti Basu the Prime Minister when opportunity came knocking on its door step. The party, according to sources in the state CPI-M leadership of Kerala, believes strongly that in the new era of coalition and high power politics, the party may be stranded along if it does not place itself properly in the right side of power.
The CPI-M knows for certain that it can always use the bogey of minority protectors and to keep the BJP at bay, to give an excuse to its vote bank in West Bengal and Kerala to keep itself floating in the corridors of power.
The new generation CPI-M leaders like Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury will certainly find no difficulties in aligning themselves with the Congress leadership under Sonia Gandhi to keep themselves in the reckoning.
The UPA under Congress, which is facing several issues like the spectrum scam and other multi-crore scams will have to get an ally with some support base of MP’s as it feels that once the heat is on the investigation to the 2G spectrum scam, the DMK may ditch the alliance. While the AIADMK, the alliance partner of the CPI-M has already pledged support to the Congress at the national level if the DMK ditches it, then there is a possibility of the CPI-M easily joining the bandwagon citing coalition dharma also as a bogey.
With the poll battles getting hottened up, the CPI-M it seems has already resigned to the fate that the party may have to face in the post May13 scenario and the party has already opened its communication with the Congress leadership at the national level.
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