In the Mahabharata epic, there is the story of Amba, a Prince from Kasi. She was rejected by her first love, Kind Shalva and Saubha. And then by Bheeshma, her abductor. She had her revenge in her next birth by becoming Shikhandi, the cause of Bheeshma’s death in the Bharata war.
This story is briefly recalled in the context of the two Communist Parties in Telangana. The first hoped that the TRS Chief Chandrasekhar Rao would take them into alliance and allot some seats in the elections to the State Legislature. They canvased vigorously for the TRS candidate in the Munugodu bye-election and claimed that the victory of the TRS over the BJP candidate was due to the support of the communist parties. They hoped that they would be rewarded by allotment of at least 4 seats to the CPI & CPM in the elections to the State legislature in December 2023. KCR simply ignored them and announced the list of the candidates of the TRS for all the seats in the legislature in Telangana. The communist parties are dismayed and disappointed and are in a search of new “lover”.
Just as Amba went from one person to another, offering herself to marriage, the communist parties are now approaching the Congress to take them as allies. They have also resolved that they would furiously work for the defeat of the TRS candidates even more furiously than they would work to defeat and destroy the BJP. It is possible that Congress in desperation to trounce the TRS, not withstanding the fact that the Congress lost deposits in all the bye-elections in Telangana may accept the offer of the Communist Party to work for it. They may even recall and remind the Congress that the CPI made available its senior leaders like Mohan Kumar Mangalam to Indira Gandhi’s Congress to defeat the old guard. They even supported the Emergency declared by Indira Gandhi. The CPI rendered many services to the Indira Congress whose successor is the Sonia Congress and begged the Congress in Telangana to accept them as allies and allot a few constituencies in which they think they have a very great chance of winning.
What a pity that the communists are offering to sell themselves and get rejected also. It is quite possible that if they approach the AMIM’s leader Asaduddin Owaisi they may be accepted as allies. They should recall that the undivided Communist Party supported the Muslim League’s demand for the partition of India and the creation of the Islamic State of Pakistan. Indeed they tasked a communist poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz in Pakistan to build the Communist Party there. A Pakistan Government foisted a conspiracy case on him, condemned him to death and after a few years in jail released him.
The Communists in India have been dislodged from power in Bengal and Tripura. They are a significant presence in Kerala only elsewhere they get less than one percent of the popular vote. Though small they have a big voice and are reduced to the State of Statement Parties of India.
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