R K SINHA
Talking to reporters after defeat of the CPM in Tripura, the Polit Bureau Member of the Party Brinda Karat said that the BJP was able to win the elections on money and muscle power. The Left leader is not ready to analyse its defeat. Such approach is an insult to the people’s mandate in the state.
Our Leftist leaders should not forget that if elections were won on the strength of money then only millionaire and billionaire would get elected. In fact, the defeat of the Communists in Tripura is due to mistaken arrogance of intellectualism and hypocrisy of the Party. Elections are not won simply by giving speech in Jawaharlal Nehru University. To win election one has to work among the people. You have to participate socially with the people in their hour of grief and in hour of happiness. You should be like one of them. To make foothold in any state hard work and strong endeavor are needed. You can’t march ahead on the strength of people like Kanhaya ‘Azadi’ Kumar. By cursing the nation you will not get votes.
Reason for Waning of Left
The Left Front ruled the state for 25 years. It was defeated by a Party in Tripura which had a vote share of less than 2 percent in the previous election. The Left Party has ben reduced from 49 seats in 2013 to 16 seats in 2018. From Prakash Karat to Sitaram Yechury, the Anglicized leaders of the CPM should try to find out why their party is diminishing from political arena. Anti-incumbency cannot be the only factor for the defeat of the Left Front in Tripura. The Left leaders of the likes of Yechury and Karat can only take out candle march. It appears that they are not able to launch any effective people movement in the country. As a result of which people have started rejecting them.
Well, the nation had seen their real face during Indo-China war of 1962. In Baratuti locality of Delhi, the Communists had even dared to organize a meeting in favour of Communist China after the war in 1962. It is interesting to note that people present at the meeting thrashed the Communists and forced them to leave the ground.
Another reason of waning influence of the Communists is their regressive policies, many factories, small and big were forced to close down resulting in sharp rise in unemployment. Because of their anti-labour policy, the trade unions of Communist Parties have lost their hold among the working class. The Left leaders have failed to leave any imprint on social and political map of India on any other issue. The Left Party leaders also failed to work on ground to strengthen their base. On the contrary, the Communists ran NGOs and took funds with the help of the Congress government. The leaders misused the money and indulged in unnecessary expenses of the funds of the NGOs.
In a news channel, one CPM leader was meekly trying to convince people that the Party was still a leading force in Tripura with a vote share of 44 percent in the just held assembly election. The Left leaders ask where we have lost in Tripura it is the Congress Party that lost the polls. The Congress polled just 2 percent of votes compared to 36 percent in the previous assembly election. No wonder, after sometime there will be no one to remember the Communist Parties in the country. The Left Front is now reduced to a one state Party in Kerala. The Left Parties are not able to attract youths to their fold in any part of the country except the students of JNU.
Of total elected representatives of the Left only 6.5 percent are under 25 years of age. Leaders of the Left Parties are full of old people. There is hardly any young leader in the Left Front. According to a report of the CPM in the Vishakhapatnam convention of the CPM out of 727 delegates who attended the meet only two of them were under 35 years of age.
Now let us take up West Bengal and the rule of the Left Front led by the CPM. The Left Front ruled the state from 1977 to 2011, 34 years without any break. Jyoti Basu, who served as chief minister of the state for long was a powerful leader. But the CPM has been losing elections of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha one after another.
In the past few decades, the Left Front is following its own line that goes against public sentiment. When the entire nation was full of praise and had taken pride in the surgical operation across the Line of Control in Pakistan, the Communists were questioning the veracity of the surgical strike. They were demanding proof of the surgical strike from the government inside and outside Parliament.
The Left Parties who claim to be the
champion of the poor and downtrodden should be asked if they have launched any agitation for the cause of the poor and the working class, or against price rise and rising
unemployment.