People's Democracy
(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
No. 17
April 28, 2013
|
Vol. XXXVII
No. 17 April 28, 2013 |
KARNATAKA
Bourgeois
Politics Reaches Its Lowest
G
THE
election process is in full swing in Karnataka.
If the land mafia and the mining mafia had had an upper hand
in Karnataka
during the two decades of liberalisation and privatisation,
and more so during
the rule of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the last
five years, they
have again unleashed the naked play of money power in full
force, spending huge
amounts of their ill earned money. So much so that even in
the very beginning
of the election process --- or should we say many months
before the assembly elections
were announced --- money power started vitiating the
political atmosphere in
the state.
The
fact is that, with the BJP’s internal
strife becoming an incessant affair, many of the real estate
brokers and other
such persons, who have joined the tanks of the neo-rich
because of the
neo-liberal policies, have for some time past been scouting
for safe havens so
that they could add after their names three crucial letters
of the English alphabet
--- MLA. While the BJP has had more than a dozen of
ministers and many more of
the members of legislative assembly (MLAs) who were engaged
in the real estate
business and it has of course had half a dozen persons who
engaged in the mining
rackets, it was the previous Congress government which
showed them how an
addition of these three letters to one’s name helps one
multiply his or her assets
many times over. That is why many in the ruling BJP as well
as in the opposition
Congress are more than eager to acquire these magical
letters at any cost. A
number of them were found roaming through the very backward
areas and “nursing”
these constituencies in order to get their ambitions
fulfilled in the next
elections. The game has been going on for the last six
months or more. These
carpetbaggers of a new type started making “donations” to
sports teams, temples
of various communities, etc; they arranged mass marriages of
the poor people, and
performing several other antics. In short, crores of rupees
were spent even
before the assembly elections were announced.
NAKED
PLAY OF
MONEY
POWER
Getting
the ticket of a party which could
assure them victory was the next important move of these
political gamblers.
With the people’s growing disenchantment with the BJP, many
of them sought a Congress
ticket as they rated its chances higher. This resulted in
fierce competition
between the new aspirants themselves and with the
Congressmen who had contested
--- successfully or unsuccessfully --- from those
constituencies earlier. As a result,
the price of a Congress ticket went much higher --- to
unheard of figures. In
this case, in fact, it was not just double-digit inflation
but many-digit
inflation. So much so that many of the fainthearted
Congressmen backed out of
this rat race, even though they too had made quick bucks
earlier. With a number
of estimates floating about the sums being paid, the
Congress party too thought
it prudent to appoint a commission of enquiry to investigate
(really!?) this
very new ticket scam.
Next,
after the Congress announced its list
of candidates, the aspirants turned to other parties. The
Janata Dal (Secular) was
their next best bet. Many of them who were denied a ticket
by one party were
accepted by another party without any questions asked about
their ideology or
opinions. The phenomenon of new parties coming up came as a
boon to these new
aspirants who hoped to get a party tag now. However, as the
number of aspirants
far exceeded the number of tickets available in all the
parties taken together,
many of them had had to choose to contest as ‘rebel’
candidates. The end result
is that now there are a large number of candidates in
several of the constituencies,
and this has generated a veritable fear of split of votes.
This has created the
possibility that many of the candidates would be found
winning with a very small
number of votes in their favour. The victory margins in such
cases would likely
be much less than in the earlier elections.
As
for the ruling class parties, they have selected
candidates on the same old, rotten criteria --- a candidate
must be belonging
to the majority caste in a particular constituency and must
also have amassed a
large amount of illegal wealth. In Karnataka, reliance on
casteism has been
going up from election to election. But the coming elections
are certainly going
to witness the most intensive caste polarisation Karnataka
has so far seen in
any election. New caste based parties have been floated ---
like the former
chief minister’s Yeddyyurappa’s Lingayat based Karnataka
Janatha Party (KJP), or
the BSR Congress Party floated by Reddy and Sriramulu of the
mining scam notoriety.
The latter party is based on a particular caste which is in
majority in
DISENCHANTMENT
WITH
MAIN PARTIES
People
are watching all this sordid drama
with intent. Their disenchantment with the BJP has grown by
leaps and bounds over
the last few years due to its corruption, non-governance,
incessant infighting,
and attacks on the working people. This is very much likely
to affect the BJP’s
own vote base. We have to recollect that though the BJP
obtained 110 seats (13
seats less than a simple majority) in the previous assembly
elections in 2008,
its vote share was only 33.86 per cent; this was less than
the Congress vote share
of 34.76 per cent which won only 65 seats. The BJP’s
influence is not spread
throughout the state; it has its base concentrated in
certain pockets only. In
the coastal areas too, where the BJP held its sway for two
decades, people are
moving away from it, which was evident in the recent
municipal elections.
Besides this disenchantment, the BJP has now split into
three. All these
factors will certainly take their toll in terms of the BJP’s
vote share.
However,
at the same time, the people’s disenchantment
with the Congress too is quite intense. This is not only
because of the anti-people
policies of the Congress led central government, leading to
incessant and
excruciating price rises and its own corruption scandals on
a ‘virat scale,’
but also because the Congress
has miserably failed to play the role of a credible
opposition. Moreover, its
credentials as a secular party came under clouds when the
Christian and Muslim
minorities were being attacked. It remained silent when
women and presspersons were
being attacked. The party did not even make minimum effort
to retain its seats
when the BJP stole its MLAs in the name of the ill-famed
‘Operation Lotus.’ In
fact, Congress leaders only waited for a sense of
disenchantment against the BJP
to set in, confining themselves in the meanwhile to high
decibel disruption of
assembly proceedings instead of taking up the serious
problems facing the people
for discussion and action.
The
Janata Dal (Secular) is another major
party in the state. Though its vote share and number of
seats dwindled to an all
time low of 18.96 per cent and 28 seats respectively in
2008, it is now hoping
to gain from the anti-BJP disenchantment.
CAMPAIGNING
ON
PEOPLE’S
ISSUES
The
Communist Party of India (Marxist) is
contesting 16 seats this time, more than the number of seats
it contested in
any earlier election. Unlike in most of the elections over
the last three
decades, the CPI(M) is contesting these polls without any
alliance or understanding
with the JD(S) or any other party. The party has been in a
continuous struggle on
people issues --- to get ensured distribution of BPL cards
to all the poor,
proper distribution of foodgrains, work and proper wages for
labourers under
the MGNREGA, raise in minimum wages for workers, defence of
the peasants
against the crash in prices of silk cocoons, tur dall,
milk, etc, pattas
for the peasants cultivating the government
and forest lands, etc. The CPI(M) is the only party which,
along with other progressive
and secular forces, took up the issue of attacks on the
rights of minorities, on
churches and mosques, on the Muslims on the pretext of cows
transport and
slaughter, etc. the party organised protest actions when
there were attacks on
women in clubs, birthday parties etc, and when there were
attacks on
presspersons. It has also been raising its voice against the
unbridled
corruption of the BJP state government and the Congress led
UPA government.
The
CPI(M) has a clean record in Karnataka or
elsewhere. In the states it had been ruling, its
consistently progressive and
pro-people stand always attracted the people. Its campaign
in various
constituencies in Karnataka has evoked good response from
the people.
CPI(M)
Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury inaugurated
the party’s campaign from in Malavlli, a reserved
constituency in Mandya
district. Thousands of people, including women and
agricultural labourers, came
out in processions from different corners of the district to
participate in the
public meeting. Yechury graphically described the present
situation in the
country, corruption scandals perpetrated by various Congress
and BJP governments,
and their attacks on the living conditions of the common
people. He said the political
situation in our country can represented in the form of a
triangle where one
end is of the simhasan
politics of the
Congress, another end is of the dushasan
politics of BJP, and the third end is of praja
shasan, of a people’s alternative to both the Congress
and BJP brands of politics.
There
was a large rally of more than 8,000
people at the time former MLA and CPI(M) state secretary G V
Sriram Reddy submitted
his nomination papers in Bagepalli constituency. Central
Committee member Abdul
Ghafoor addressed the huge public meeting there. One may
note that in this
constituency, which the CPI(M) had won earlier,
moneybags from
