People's Democracy

Harkishan Singh Surjeet

HELD in four states and one union territory, the recent assembly elections have one point in common --- that the Bharatiya Janata Party, the leading party of the National Democratic Alliance ruling the centre, has suffered great humiliation everywhere.

There is nothing surprising in it. These assembly elections, which were described by some newspapers as a mini general election, came in the wake of the Tehelka exposures that dynamited all the tall claims of the BJP as a "party of principles," as a "party with a difference." The episode involved no less than the BJP president himself, who was seen taking filthy lucre from decoy arms dealers. Also involved was an important functionary of the RSS --- the organisation that controls the BJP and never tires of making fantastic claims about character-building, morality, and what not. The exposures proved beyond doubt that even the country’s security is not safe in the hands of the BJP-led government. The polls do testify that the realisation about the real character of the BJP has indeed gone deep among the people of this country.

Two of the states which went to the polls were Left-ruled states. Of them, one was West Bengal that surpassed its own record by electing the CPI(M)-led Left Front for the sixth time in a row.

However, if one goes by the events that preceded these elections, the Left Front victory appears all the more significant. As always, but this time on a far bigger scale, the corporate media tried its best to mislead the masses with its opinion polls and exit polls. While most of these predicted a big gain for the Congress-Trinamul combine in these polls, some pundits of psephology even went to the extent of predicting a defeat for the Left Front. (See "on file" in this issue.) However, the people of the state threw all these predictions into the dustbin and re-elected the Left Front with a big majority.

There is one more significant aspect to the West Bengal elections. Only a little before the elections, in the wake of the Tehelka exposures, Trinamul chief Ms Mamata Banerjee ostensibly broke her relations with the BJP, well realising that she would definitely suffer if she continued to be seen in company with the thoroughly discredited BJP. Then her outfit hurriedly finalised an alliance with the Congress party, in the fond hope that the combined vote share of the two would be able to turn the Left Front’s apple cart.

Little did Ms Mamata realise, however, that the Left Front, a product of decades of struggle for the people’s cause, has weathered many a storm in the past, and that there was no exaggeration in Jyoti Basu’s contention that only the Left Front could provide an alternative to the Left Front. The fact is that the Front did quite well even in urban areas where political pundits were predicting a big win for the Congress-Trinamul alliance. Of the seats won by the combine, the Left Front lost many by narrow margins --- several by less than 500 votes and one by just 5 votes.

In the meantime, despite her postures for public consumption, Ms Mamata Banerjee kept her doors open for a renewed understanding with the BJP. Her MPs in Lok Sabha continued to sit with the treasury benches, and she herself refrained from making any attack on the BJP or the prime minister and his government. All this was a part of public knowledge. But what was surprising is that the Congress party, which claims to fight communalism, preferred to ignore the hard fact about this understanding of the Trinamul with the BJP, in the fond hope that it would gain a few more seats by aligning with the Trinamul Congress.

The results, however, show that the Left Front’s mass base is by and large intact in the state. Neither the corporate world’s monetary and media support to the opportunistic combine nor the violence resorted to by the Trinamul men could make any dent in the Left Front stronghold. As for the BJP, it came a cropper par excellence.

The Congress record in Kerala was no better insofar as fighting the forces of communalism is concerned. Here, as is well known, the Congress is in the leadership of the United Democratic Front that includes the Muslim League as well as several caste-based parties. But the Congress did not remain content with this only. It went to the extent of having an open understanding with the BJP as well as with the Muslim fundamentalist People’s Democratic Party (PDP). As reported by the media, some of the Congressmen even went to the Coimbatore Jail to seek support from the PDP leader Madani who is lodged there on the charge of his involvement in the Coimbatore bomb blasts.

The Congress party’s understanding with the BJP is nothing new, however. It was there as early as in the Lok Sabha and Kerala assembly elections in 1991 and in subsequent elections.

It is true that the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) has lost in Kerala, because of the delicate balance of political forces in the highly polarised Kerala politics where hardly two per cent of the voters turn the balance now in favour of the LDF and now in favour of the UDF. But the LDF’s vote percentage has not suffered any erosion in the state. On the other hand, the voting figures do suggest that, in many seats, the BJP transferred its votes to the Congress and other UDF partners, including the Muslim League, in its eagerness to defeat the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front.

The Kerala experience suggests that, insofar as communalism is concerned, the Congress party has not learnt any lessons from its past follies of capitulating before the communal forces. As any observer of Indian political scene will tell, apart from the Congress governments’ track record of pursuing anti-people policies, it was its surrender before or compromise with the communal forces that also contributed to the serious erosion of its mass base. That is how the Congress has today the lowest ever figure in Lok Sabha. Yet it repeated the same folly in Kerala for temporary gains. To it, fighting the Left was the more preferable job than fighting the forces of communalism which are inimical to national unity. As for the BJP, the Left has always been its enemy number one.

Other reasons for the LDF’s defeat in Kerala have been dealt with elsewhere in this issue.

One of the other two states to go to the polls was Tamil Nadu where both the DMK, an NDA constituent, and the BJP suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the AIADMK-led alliance. As in other states, top BJP leaders including the prime minister and the union home minister devoted much time to campaigning in Tamil Nadu. But all their efforts, and their hopes, came to a naught here. The NDA’s defeat in the state was a resounding one, so much so that in state capital Chennai, which has always been a DMK stronghold, Karunanidhi’s son could scrape through only by a narrow margin. The CPI(M) too gained in the capital city, and won six out of the eight seats it contested in the state.

In Assam, the ruling Ahom Gana Parishad (AGP) and the BJP entered into a virtually last-moment alliance to contest the elections. The dubious nature of this alliance was clear from the fact that it was struck behind the back of the people; AGP leader and chief minister P K Mohanta came to Delhi ostensibly to discuss the Bodo issue with the union home minister but actually to finalise this deal. This opportunism, however, failed to give any dividends to the two parties. The BJP had had high hopes in the state, and its top leaders addressed a series of meetings here, but all its hopes were dashed to the ground. In fact, the BJP could win only a few seats in Assam, much less than what it was expecting. As for the AGP, even the chief minister lost badly; he came fourth in the seat from where he was contesting.

In the union territory of Pondicherry, the Congress is all set to form a government with support from the AIADMK and independents.

Along with these assembly elections, by-elections to three Lok Sabha seats were also held. Of these, the Congress lost the Shahjahanpur seat in UP to the Samajwadi Party candidate; the seat had fallen vacant because of the death of Jitendra Prasad (Congress). Similarly, in Tamil Nadu, the AIADMK wrested from the BJP the Tiruchirapally seat which had fallen vacant because of the death of R Kumaramangalam (BJP). Thus, the Congress and the BJP lost one Lok Sabha seat each in these bypolls.

On the contrary, the Left Front maintained its hold on the Midnapore seat in West Bengal, that had fallen vacant due to the veteran CPI leader Comrade Indrajit Gupta’s death. The Left Front/CPI nominee won this seat by a bigger margin. The Left Front/CPI also won an assembly seat in Tripura that had fallen vacant due to the death of its CPI incumbent.

All this has naturally worried the top leadership of the BJP; the prime minister felt worried even while he was away in Malaysia on an official visit. Moreover, according to a news item in Hindustan Times (May 16), now the top BJP leaders are to go to meet the top brass of the RSS, the parent body, on the same issue. The reason is obvious. Only in a few months time, assembly elections are due in Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal; even after bifurcation, the former is still the biggest state in terms of assembly and Lok Sabha seats. If the BJP loses the Uttar Pradesh elections, which is likely in view of the available indications, it may well prove to be the beginning of its end. Already a few of its allies have deserted it, and there is a widespread belief, shared even by mediapersons, that some more allies may quit the alliance of convenience that the NDA is.

But the problem is that the Left and democratic forces are weak in the country as a whole, and this creates a peculiar situation that is not in the interest of the country’s future. In Assam, for instance, it was the Congress that gained because of the loss of credibility suffered by the AGP-BJP combine. This means that, unless a third alternative is forged, the country and her people will continue to suffer from the same ruinous financial, economic, industrial and agricultural policies which the Congress government initiated about a decade ago and which the BJP-led NDA regime is pursuing with a vengeance. The emergence of a third alternative, based not on any convenience but on pro-people issues and struggles, is an essential condition for the country’s resurgence as well as to safeguard and strengthen national unity, the country’s secular and federal democratic edifice and its syncretic cultural ethos.

In this context, it will not be out of place to remark that even though there exists a Lok Morcha under the leadership of Jyoti Basu, much needs to be done to make it a strong and vital force. No doubt the Morcha has got the potential of providing a viable alternative to our masses, but this is not going to be an automatic process. Not only on economic issues but also on issues like secularism and federalism, national unity, an independent foreign policy of world peace and anti-imperialism, and a war against corruption, the Morcha and its constituents have to be constantly in action. This is absolutely essential to make the people realise, by their own experience, that here is the alternative they are seeking --- an alternative to the BJP as well as to the Congress. The country cannot be allowed to remain a captive of the bourgeois-landlord policies and class interests any more. The Lok Morcha has to take the people out of this morass, and the Left parties have to take a forceful initiative to catalyse this outcome.