State: Communist Parties in Confession Spree
Intro: The political observers wonder if the major contributions of communist movements in India have taken the wrong steps, confession about them, repeating the error and confession again!
Both Communist Party of India (CPI) and CPI (Marxist), the major communist players in India are in competition with each other in admitting their mistakes which resulted in the most disastrous set back they suffered in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections. CPM had confessed their erroneous modus operandi in their central committee and Polit Bureau (PB) meetings after the elections. Now, General Secretary Prakash Karat says that CPM line is to oppose both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress, but they admit that party failed to gauge the real threat posed by BJP. He was addressing the Kerala state committee of CPM after its deliberations about the ‘election and after’. It appeared to the media men that he was hinting a soft approach towards Congress in the future while opposing BJP tooth the nail.
At the same time CPI is in total confusion while doing the post election analysis. A few days before when their state committee meet was organized, it was not a pleasant affair. Reportedly, there was a strong protest against former general secretary AB Bardan for making confusing statements before LS elections. When he went to UP he said that Mayavati would be made the Prime Minister when the Third Front gets majority but, while in Tamil Nadu he envisaged Jayalalitha as the PM instead of Mayavati.
It is also reported that state leaders blamed central leadership for the utter defeat in Thiruvananthapuram LS constituency. Some members were even reported to have alleged that the Thiruvananthapuram candidate was thrust upon the state unit by the central committee. The charges had really upset and annoyed both Bardan and incumbent general secretary S. Sudhakar Reddy.
The BJP and Congress kept ridiculing CPM-led Left
Democratic Front (LDF) in general and CPI in particular, stating that Bennet Abraham, CPI candidate in Thiruvananthapuram was not a party man but, the proprietor of some self-financing professional colleges in Tamil Nadu. They had added that Abraham was instrumental in police torture of DYFI and AISF (youth wings of CPM and CPI respectively) workers for staging agitations against the malpractices of self-financing colleges. Whether it is true or not, when the counting finished Bennet Abraham landed in a miserable third place far behind BJP stalwart O Rajagopal.
But, when CPI’s national council met in Delhi, it was again a confession spree. Reddy told the media that their Third Front calculation went wrong and desertion of Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) in Kerala caused burning impact in Kerala election arithmetic. Reddy also admitted that election pact with Congress in Telengana was a political blunder. The same time he repudiated the charge that Abaham was field in Thiruvananthapuram by central leadership; it was the state leadership’s decision.
Now, the political observers wonder if the major contributions of communist movements in India have taken the wrong steps, confession about them, repeating the error and confession again! Jyothi Basu’s Himalayan Blunder for not accepting the offer to be the PM, again party’s confession for opposing Sonia and later supporting Sonia, CPI’s confession for supporting Emergency (1975–1977), and now confession about the Third Front and support to Congress in Telengana , etc. are some of the examples of it.
—T Satisan from Kochi
