Was the Indian Election a Debacle for the Left? If So, Why?

http://www.counterpunch.org/basu05262009.html

By DEEPANKAR BASU

In the recently concluded 2009 general elections to the lower house of the parliament (Lok Sabha), the social democratic, parliamentary left in India, composed of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM), the Communist Party of India (CPI) and a bunch of smaller left-wing parties, suffered the severest electoral thrashing in a long time. This year, the CPM won a total of only 16 parliamentary seats. As compared to its performance in the last general elections in 2004 this is a decline of 27 seats. The CPI, on the other hand, won 4 seats in this time around, suffering a net decline of 6 parliamentary seats from its position in 2004. Does this mean that the Indian population has rejected even the mildly progressive policies that the social democratic left tried to defend at the central level? Is this a mandate for the ruling Congress party and by extension for neoliberalism, its pet project since the early 1990s?

The facts don’t sustain such a claim.

A careful analysis of the results show that this was an electoral rebuke to the social democratic left but not to social democratic policies; on the other hand, just as in 2004 when the right-wing Bhartiya Janata Party's "shinning India" slogan was decisively rejected by the populace, this is a mandate against neoliberalism and for welfare-oriented policies. To the extent that the Congress was pushed by the social democratic left to implement such policies, it can possibly be interpreted as an indirect endorsement of Congress's late-in-the day populism.

The first misinterpretation that is gaining ground is the alleged existence of a "wave" in favor of the centrist Congress party which swept it to power, overcoming the ubiquitous current of anti-incumbency observed in Indian politics. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Despite having won 206 parliamentary seats, the Congress merely won 28.55 per cent of the votes polled in 2009, increasing it by just about 2 per centage points from 2004. An overall share of 29 per cent of the total votes polled at the national level can hardly be interpreted as a "massive wave"; besides, this overall increase also hides substantial decreases in vote share (and seats) in several important states like Orissa, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh.

The second misinterpretation going the rounds assumes that this general election saw the definite demise of regional parties and all federalist tendencies of the Indian populace; the people voted overwhelmingly for national parties, the argument goes, because they want stability. Whether people desire stability or not, the fact is that the populace did not reject regional parties in favor of national parties. This can be seen by looking at the share of votes going to the Congress and the BJP taken together: according to provisional figures released by the Election Commission of India, the combined vote share of the Congress and BJP in fact declined from 48.69 per cent in 2004 to 47.35 per cent in 2009.

Social Democratic Performance

How did the social democratic left parties perform in terms of the share of votes polled? At the national level, the CPM lost only marginally in terms of the share of votes polled. The decline was from 5.66 per cent in 2004 to 5.33 per cent this year; the CPI, on the other hand, gained marginally at the national level, increasing its share of votes from 1.41 to 1.43 per cent. Thus, going by these national figures, there is no evidence of any trend against their opposition, however feeble, to the neoliberal policies of the UPA-led Central government.

But the national level figures hide many interesting state-level variations; hence we must also look at state-level data to get a more complete picture. There is another reason why we need to supplement national level with state-level analysis: since the social democratic left is prominent only in the three states of Kerala, Tripura and West Bengal, the national figures are not very relevant to assessing their electoral prospects.

How did the social democrats perform in the different states? Three tendencies can be observed in the data. First, the social democratic left managed to increase its vote share in a few states: Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttaranchal and Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Apart from Manipur, of course, the total vote share of the SDL in these states remains insignificant; hence, the increase in the vote share did not even remotely translate into changes in seats. Second, the social democratic left lost its share of votes polled in a large number of states: Assam, Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir, Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, West Bengal, and Jharkhand. The percentage declines in Punjab and Jharkhand were very large, though that did not affect the reckoning in terms of seats because the SDL did not have seats to start with, i.e., in 2004. On the other hand, the sharp decline in the vote share in Tripura did not translate, fortunately for the social democratic left, into any decline in seats. Third, the states where the loss of vote share wreaked havoc for the reckoning in terms of seats were Kerala and West Bengal: in Kerala, the share of votes going to the social democrats declined from 39.41 per cent in 2004 to 37.92 per cent in 2009; in West Bengal, the corresponding share declined from 50.72 per cent in 2004 to 43.3 per cent in 2009. The bulk of the decrease in national vote share was concentrated in the electorally important states of Kerala and West Bengal, the prime left bastions, whereas the increase in vote share was spread out across states where the SDL is electorally marginal.

So, why was the bulk of the decrease in vote share for the social democratic left concentrated in Kerala and West Bengal? The clue to an answer is provided by the fact that both states, Kerala and West Bengal, currently have social democratic governments, led by the CPM. In both states, the state governments have, over the past few years, increasingly accepted, adopted and pushed neoliberal economic policies, often in the name of development and industrialization.
This led to the emergence of a seemingly paradoxical situation: the social democratic left opposed, however feebly, the continued adoption of neoliberal polices at the level of the central government, while the same set of policies were aggressively pursued in the states where they were in power. The debacle of the social democrats in the two most electorally important states of Kerala and West Bengal can, therefore, be read as a forceful rejection of this doublespeak and hypocrisy. The rejection of the social democrats at the level of these two states, moreover, dovetails into the overall mandate in favor of progressive and social democratic policies, and against the neoliberal turn, at the national level. Of course there were other local factors, both in West Bengal and in Kerala, that overlaid this broad rejection of the neoliberal turn and turned the mandate decisively against them in both these states. Before we look at some of these factors, especially for West Bengal where the crash of the social democratic left was the most stunning, a comment about the so-called national "wave" in favour of the Congress is in order.

Social Democrats help the Congress

The so-called nationwide "wave" in favor of Congress, if there was one, resulted to a large extent from the slew of populist policies that it adopted over its last few years in office, pushed towards this by the social democrats. These include the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), the step-up in public investment in agriculture, the debt relief program for farmers, the Right to Information Act 2005, the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act 2006, the Unorganized Workers' Social Security Bill 2008, the setting up of the Sacchar Committee to inquire into the continued marginalization of Muslims in the country. The Congress cashed the benefits of this populist swing electorally, claiming it to be its own policies whereas, in truth, the social democratic left was largely instrumental in pushing for these policies at the central level.

Other similar policies pushed for by the social democrats include: opposition to financial sector reforms (pensions, insurance), opposition to outright privatization of the public sector, privatization of health care and education. These defensive actions by the social democratic left have partially limited the unbridled power of capital to exploit labor and have provided some relief to the mass of the working people in India. It is, therefore, no surprise that corporate India is exultant at the social democrats' electoral disaster this month. The stock market in Bombay erupted immediately after the results were out. Trading had to be stopped for a while to deal with the unprecedented euphoria. As many media reports in India show, the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), and other business groups have already started preparing their "wish-list" of reforms, by which they mean another round of neoliberal policy onslaughts on the common people. Naturally enough, land reforms does not figure in this wish-list of reforms.

The social democratic left's ability to counter the Congress’ claim that the populist thrust was a result of a progressive shift in the party, in reality fiercely opposed by entrenched interests within the Congress, was severely limited by its actuakl, de facto record in the states where it was in power: Kerala and West Bengal. Thus, paradoxically, while it was largely responsible for creating the populist shift in the Congress party and thereby creating support in its favor, it could not transform this effort into any substantial electoral advantage for itself; and this was largely because of its doublespeak and hypocrisy, saying one thing at the central level and doing exactly the opposite at the state level.
Probably nothing brings out this better than the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). The NREGA, which provides a guarantee of a minimum of 100 days of work to the rural poor, came into effect on February 02, 2006 in 200 of India's poorest districts. This provision was originally brought to the fore by grassroots-level mass movements in Rajasthan and other states in India, and was later adopted and forcefully pushed by the social democrats at the central level. While the NREGA has been constantly attacked in the mainstream press as a waste of resources and a useless policy initiative, in reality it has managed to create substantial benefits for the rural proletariat and poor peasants; even though there is still a lot of room for improvement, the limited pro-people initiative represented by the NREGA has managed to improve the lives of the rural poor by putting a floor on agricultural wages and assuring some days of employment, both of which resulted in increased rural incomes.

West Bengal: A Closer Look

How did the NREGA fare in West Bengal and Kerala compared to other states? In 2006-07, the person-days of NREGA employment generated per rural household amounted 6 in West Bengal and and even more wretched 3 in Kerala, with both states figuring in the list of the 3 worst performers. Compared to this, the all-India average was 17 person-days. Chhattisgarh generated 34, Madhya Pradesh 56, Assam 70 and Rajasthan 77 person-days. A similar picture emerges for the next year too: in 2007-08, West Bengal generated 8 person-days and Kerala 6 person-days, much below the all-India average of 16 person-days. The dismal performance of the state government led the Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity (PBKMS), a non-party, registered trade union of agricultural workers, to file a public interest litigation in the Calcutta High Court on non implementation of the 100 days work guarantee scheme in West Bengal. In sum, therefore, the two states where the social democrats were in power saw the worst implementation of the NREGA!

Coming back to the factors specific to West Bengal that led to this electoral disaster for the social democratic left, we must complement the story of the state government's surrender to neoliberalism with its fatal arrogance. Failure in the implementation of the NREGA went hand-in-hand with other overt neoliberal policy moves: privatization of health care, privatization of education, full-scale assault on the public distribution system, and an aggressive state-sponsored attack on farmers in a bid to "acquire" agricultural land for a neoliberal industrialization drive. Singur and Nandigram stand as symbols, at the same time, of both this attack by the state on behalf of corporate capital and also of the fierce resistance to this brutality by the poor peasants and landless laborers. The arrogance of the state government was in repellent display during the "re-capture" of Nandigram in March 2007, a violent attack on the people opposing forcible land acquisition, and also in the manner it dealt with the case of Rizwanur Rahman. Against a backdrop of endemically dismal conditions for the Muslims in the state, the insensitivity displayed in the Rizwanur Rahman case increased the fury of the common Muslim population against the social democratic state government. Is it so difficult to see, then, why some of the districts in West Bengal where the social democrats performed wretchedly, like North and South Paraganas, Nadia, Murshidabad, Malda, Birbhum, are also ones with a relatively high proportion of Muslims?

At this point, we need to closely scrutinize an alternative argument that is going the social democratic rounds. This argument runs something like this: the Left Front made a great tactical mistake in severing ties with the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) at the Center on the issue of the nuclear deal with the USA; this allowed the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Congress (INC) to forge an alliance in West Bengal; this alliance was instrumental in consolidating the anti-Left votes and directly resulted in the electoral reverses of the social democrats in West Bengal.

Alas, the argument does not hold water If it were true that the social democratic debacle was fueled mainly by the consolidation of anti-Left votes (because of the Congress-TMC alliance), it would mean the following: the social democratic left's share of votes polled would remain relatively unchanged between 2004 and 2009. This is a straightforward testable implication of the above argument. What does the evidence say on this?

There was a big decline in the share of votes that went to the social democratic Left Front: in 2004, the Left Front had garnered 50.72 per cent of the votes polled; in 2009, the corresponding vote share fell to 43.56 per cent. While it is difficult to accurately see how this 7 per cent statewide decline is distributed across all the parliamentary constituencies because of the 2008 delimitation of constituencies, we can nonetheless figure out the changes in vote shares in those that remained relatively unchanged by the delimitation process: Balurghat saw a marginal decline of 0.49 per cent, Raigunj a decline of 3.13 per cent, Alipurduars a decline of 4.48 per cent, Cooch Behar a decline of 6.88 per cent, Darjeeling a decline of 7.99 per cent, Birbhum a decline of 9.65 per cent and Bolpur witnessed a massive decline of 15.65 per cent. Can we, in the face of this overwhelming evidence of a massive rejection of the social democratic left, still stick to the story of the supposed consolidation of anti-Left votes as the primary reason behind the debacle?

The social democratic left played an important role in slowing down the juggernaut of neoliberalism in India through its intervention in the formation of the Common Minimum Program of the UPA; and this was largely possible, given the political situation five years ago, because of its sizable parliamentary presence at the central level. If nothing, the reaction of corporate India to the electoral debacle of the social democrats is proof of the partial efficacy of its past interventions. But there are at least two serious problems for a strategy that focuses on primarily on electoral politics, as the social democratic left does.

First, most of its interventions, even though salutary, are at best defensive actions and therefore extremely limited from any long-term left political perspective; the ruling classes set the agenda and move forward with a concrete program of neoliberal reforms and the social democrats reacts to that agenda. It tries to halt the speed of the reforms, tries to win a battle here or there. In such a scenario, the best outcome can only be a return to the status quo, not a move forward towards a socialist future. Is it difficult for the social democratic left to see the inherent and long-term limitations of its strategy?

This brings us to the second, and related, problem of social democratic strategy. The fact that the Communist parties, now part of what I have called the social democratic left, have lost the political offensive in the context of the class struggle in India also finds reflection in their over-emphasis on electoral politics, to the virtual exclusion of all non-electoral struggles. Over the last two decades, there is not one significant nationwide non-electoral struggle that it initiated or led; all its attention and energy has been fixed towards how to maintain its electoral position in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. More often than not, it has been willing to enter into opportunistic and unprincipled alliances to attain short-term electoral goals, little realizing that this opportunism leads to long-term political setbacks. At times it has even gone with the right-wing BJP to keep the centrist Congress out of power, quickly reversing the logic at the next moment and aligning with the Congress to defend secularism. Caught in these endless electoral antics and working within a framework whose rules have been set by the ruling classes, it has gradually distanced itself from its programmatic concerns of a people’s democratic revolution. To recover its potency and relevance, it must refashion itself by forging links with the rising tide of revolutionary mass movements in India against the neoliberal offensive and overcome its obsession with electoral politics. Of course if post-poll statements of the social democratic bigwigs in West Bengal, like Biman Bose, are anything to go by, they have decided to do exactly the opposite: justify the electoral debacle on external factors, avoid any serious rethinking and continue with elections as the primary focus of their politics.

Deepankar Basu is Assistant Professor of Economics at the Colorado State University. He can be reached at Deepankar.Basu@colostate.edu

The Indian Elections: a Game Changer?

http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad05192009.html

By VIJAY PRASHAD

The Indian general election of 2009 is finally over. 445 million voters entered 828,000 polling booths to elect 543 candidates to the lower house of the parliament, the Lok Sabha. An immense state apparatus went into play to ensure that the voters’ will was not subverted by theft (2.1 million security guards were joined by 74,729 videographers to observe the polls). The entire process took just over a month. On Saturday, May 16, the Election Commission released news of the outcome. This is the first election in decades where there was no foreseeable victor; neither was there one singular issue. Four major coalitions vied for position, and the issues on the table appeared to be far more local than national. The result has belied this expectation. The Indian National Congress won decisively, over 200 seats, and for the first time since the 1960s, is able to form a government in Delhi without any major allies. This is a remarkable feat, given that the Congress ran an election promising more of the same, a certain tonic for defeat in anti-incumbency democratic politics. It projected the current Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as its leader, even as it had the various scions of the Nehru family as the central icons of the party and of its campaigning (Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi both won their seats this election). Little suggested that the Congress would do better than it did in 2004 (with 145 seats).

The Congress’ victory came at the expense of various regional parties, and the Left. Its gains were taken directly from the Left (in West Bengal and Kerala), and from two other regions where it had previously been shut-out (Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh). The Left suffered, in many ways, from the perils of governance in neo-liberal times: able to bring justice to the countryside, the Left faced a growing unemployment problem that it could not solve through a feasible alternative. Attempts to break the intractable bind of jobless industrial growth failed, not only because the Left had to operate within the confines of bourgeois law, but also because of the privations of governance in regions without the treasury of oil. The Left’s allies in places such as Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh had an overly expedient relationship to anti-capitalism; the voters saw right through them. The Left had engineered a Third Front, which, at one time, projected as its prime ministerial candidate the leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Mayawati. The BSP was originally the party of the most oppressed, Dalit, castes, but it has since crafted itself as a wily player, making alliances with Brahmins to fend off the dominant, rural castes who are not at either end of the hypothetical caste totem pole. Mayawati’s party maintained its 2004 position, making no gains.

The party of political Hinduism (the Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP) won 138 seats in 2004, but this time could only pull off 117. Confined to a few states, the BJP suffered from the gradual demise of its irascible politics: when one of its candidates, Varun Gandhi (another great-grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru, as it turns out), made anti-Muslim statements, it dented the BJP’s claim to being an inclusive party. Its leader, L. K. Advani, wanted desperately to be the next Prime Minister, but his close association with the politics of animus failed him. Concern for their economic well-being trumped any anxiety among the voters about national security, so that the BJP had little to run on. Both the Congress and the BJP have close ties to big money, and to economic “reform” (which is essentially the process to dismantle the public sector), but the Congress unlike the BJP also has some measure of commitment to social welfare. The siren of national security was so weak that the BJP was unable to make capital out of the Mumbai terror attacks of last year. The BJP’s alliance partners have also failed it, afraid for good reason that Hindu supremacy’s engine might be slowly winding down. Advani has resigned as leader of his party. In the wings stands Narendra Modi, the leader from Gujarat, who is known for his efficiency and his brutality, a combination that chills. The BJP is not down and out, only wounded. Its social base has not abandoned it, even as the party has left them down electorally.

If the BJP lost parts of its coalition in the run-up to the election, the Congress too lost several of its partners. Three of them went on to form the Fourth Front (these are the main parties that emerged out of the Socialist tradition, but they are now essentially parties of the Other Backward Castes who dominate the political culture along the Gangetic plain of northern India). This election was not kind to them. One of their leaders, Ram Vilas Pawan, holds a record in the Guinness Book for the largest margin of victory in a democratic election; but that was in 1977. He lost his seat this year. The Congress went alone in the politically fertile belt along the Ganges, and it emerged more victorious than even it anticipated. It won 22 of the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh, a much better showing than its 9 in 2004, and the Samajwadi Party, which will certainly support the Congress government, won an equal number. Regional parties remained strong, although most of them held power in their states based on the reasonably good governance of their parties in the state governments (so that Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal-United and Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal both won in Bihar and Orissa respectively). They have limited national ambition.

Contributions of the Left.

Fawning supplicants hastily said that the turn-around in the Congress came because of the energy expended by the descendants of the Nehru family. “All credit goes to Rahul Gandhi for single handedly reviving the Congress in Uttar Pradesh,” said Jyotiraditya Scindia, the scion of an ex-royal family who is in the Congress high command. This is not a scientific judgment. More is gained by looking backward. The Congress went into what seemed like terminal decline from the 1970s to the mid-1990s. The emergence of regional parties with a commitment to political devolution put paid to the idea that such a vast region as India must have only one highly centralized party; local issues lost out in the centrifugal Congress. Apart from this institutional thrust against the Congress, the main reason for its decline was ideological. Till the 1970s, the Congress’ claim to legitimacy rested on the immense prestige of its anti-colonial role, and upon this foundation grew the two pillars of its policy, secularism and socialism. The socialism began to fray after the two oil shocks, and as India’s midnight’s children, those of the elite born after 1947, felt compelled to liberate themselves from India’s poor. This is what they meant by “liberalization,” and one of its main architects was the current Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh. A brief foray into populism in the early 1970s was abandoned as the Congress tried to govern without democracy (through an Emergency regime in 1975-77) and then through the politics of identity rather than the politics of well-being (in the 1980s). But as the Congress walked the identity road, it was outflanked from the Right by the BJP. The Congress limped on, but always a pale shadow.

In 2004, the Congress was able to return to power at the head of a vast coalition that was united by its disgust at six years of BJP rule. It is at this juncture that the Left forced the Congress to slightly shift its disregard for social democracy, and to enact several measures to benefit the impoverished rural workers, in particular. The Congress needed the Left, whose outside support not only gave stability to the government, but it also provided the Congress with the policy positions to reach populations abandoned by New Delhi. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) was one such instrument, brought into force in 2005 to give adults who live in rural areas hundred days of employment a year to do public works at the minimum wage. Despite sneers from the Congress’ own economists (many of whom cut their teeth in Washington with the World Bank and IMF), the Congress political brass agreed with the Left that this project should be a priority. The NREGA provided a floor beneath families devastated by rural unemployment. Mihir Shah of the Central Employment Guarantee Council says that although “India’s countryside continues to be characterized by a sluggish agrarian economy, marred by malnourished children and anaemic women, as also suicide by farmers in distress, there is no question that NREGA has put money into the hands of the poorest of the poor on a scale that is unprecedented in the history of independent India.” The NREGA burnished the Congress’ image.

In July 2008, when the Left broke its tie with the Congress, the Finance Minister P. Chidambaram hastily told the business press that the Left’s departure will speed up the process of the “economic reforms.” Chidambaram, one of those least enthused by the NREGA and other social welfare provisions, was keen to move on the GDP. “What do they want us to do,” he had earlier asked of the Left. “Do they only want to distribute poverty in this country? Those who say the market growth is irrelevant and those who say the growth only helps the rich are the worst enemies of the poor.” The Left blocked the Banking Regulation Bill that would have given Indian banks over to their counterparts in London and New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong. The Left also protected both the insurance and the pension sector from control by the wiles of international finance capital. India has been buffered from the current financial crisis largely because the border guards of finance were not withdrawn. Had they left the financial borders unguarded, the crisis would have been even deeper (about 600,000 workers lost their jobs in these past few months, crop prices have dampened the hopes of an agricultural recovery, and agrarian suicides continue – but things could have been worse). The Congress benefitted from the Left’s vigilance.

Little distinguishes the Congress from the BJP on matters of “economic reform.” But the Congress has a softer spot, making it more amenable to the kind of social welfare schemes that capital can swallow. Additionally, the Congress is programmatically opposed to communalism, the politics of hatred that is central to political Hinduism. The Congress has a historical link to secularism, and it long recognized that for it to recover its political ground it must once more be seen as the party of Muslims and oppressed castes. Hence, early in the tenure of his government, Manmohan Singh appointed the Sachar Commission to investigate barriers that hold back Indian Muslims from full equality. The Commission’s frankness earned it plaudits from all sections, but especially from Indian Muslims, who had faced over two decades of ascendancy by the very nastiest face of political Hinduism. Rather than riots the Congress promised degrees and capital. Soberness marked the Congress-led government’s approach to things that mattered directly to Indian Muslims – its response to the Mumbai attacks was not jingoism, which would certainly have led to attacks on Indian Muslims. The seriousness of purpose to seek a diplomatic solution prevented the outbreak of a pogrom, something that had become commonplace when the BJP held the reins of power. Indian Muslims and other minorities took shelter in the Congress.

These gestures from the Congress government have much to do with the Left’s role in New Delhi. The probity of the Left gave it more influence than its parliamentary presence should have allowed. But it was this commitment to honesty and its program that also moved the Left to break its tie with the Congress in 2004. The issue here was the Congress’ foreign policy, a part of governance that is often least important during an election, unless the issue is one of war. Since the 1990s, the Congress has been eager to forge a political alliance with the United States (and Israel), a logical step if India was to become one more platform for the Washington Consensus. Small steps brought the ruling elites of Washington and New Delhi closer together, and by 9/11, the links had become very close. The Indian Left and wizened nationalists within the Congress threw themselves in the middle, preventing the complete fusion of Indian foreign policy with Washington’s needs. It was this alliance that refused Bush’s request for Indian troops to Iraq in 2003. But the Left could not win all the battles, having failed to prevent India’s agreement on the US policy to isolate Iran. As part of a quid pro quo, the US government validated India’s nuclear program and India voted with the US against Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency. It was on the issue of the nuclear deal that the Left withdrew its support to the Congress government in 2008. The issue remains important, but it is not one that is immediately related to more pressing questions of hunger and homelessness.

The Confederation of Indian Industry hailed the new election result and said that the “reforms” must be “fast tracked.” The Congress’ spokesperson, Jairam Ramesh, explained to the New York Times that this kind of speed could now be the order of the day because “the Left will not have a stranglehold. There will be better cohesion on economic policy. Right now, the priority is to restore high economic growth.” Those in the Congress who lean Left are weakened by the Left’s loss; Mani Shankar Aiyar, who is a Congressman in the Fabian Socialist tradition, lost his seat, which means that that singular Nehruvian voice is lost to the Congress’ parliamentary delegation. It will be filled with those who are enthused with high-tech and stock exchanges, and care only for rural policy when it impacts their own vote banks. If the Congress does follow the advice of Ramesh, as all indicators assume it will, then it will shoot itself in the foot. The mandate it received is not for more “reform,” but for policies such as the NGERA and the Sachar Commission, policies that stem from its original social democratic ideology. But it no longer has the Left as conscience.

Defeat has come to the Left. In its three bastions, the Left held on only to Tripura. In Kerala and West Bengal the verdict was split, but that is not enough for the Communists. In West Bengal, in particular, the Left has over the past few decades swept the parliamentary elections. This was largely a function of its impressive work in the construction of rural democracy, and in the fragmentation of the camp of reaction. This time, the latter united, as the Congress joined hands with its long-time adversary, the Trinamool Congress and various extreme left cults. They united in opposition to the Left Front’s controversial industrialization policy, and in particular to the struggle in Singur (where a Tata car factory was to be built) and in Nandigram (where a ferocious battle broke out over land utilization). The Left was unable to defend both the broad policy and the interpretation of the events in Singur-Nandigram. In Kerala, the Left was undone by factionalism, and once more disagreements over development policy. The largest Communist Party, the CPIM, recognized that this election is a “major setback” for the movement, and that the party must now conduct a “serious examination of the reasons” for its poor performance.

Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and Director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, CT His new book is The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, New York: The New Press, 2007. He can be reached at: vijay.prashad@trincoll.edu

The Indian Elections: a Game Changer?

http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad05192009.html

By VIJAY PRASHAD

The Indian general election of 2009 is finally over. 445 million voters entered 828,000 polling booths to elect 543 candidates to the lower house of the parliament, the Lok Sabha. An immense state apparatus went into play to ensure that the voters’ will was not subverted by theft (2.1 million security guards were joined by 74,729 videographers to observe the polls). The entire process took just over a month. On Saturday, May 16, the Election Commission released news of the outcome. This is the first election in decades where there was no foreseeable victor; neither was there one singular issue. Four major coalitions vied for position, and the issues on the table appeared to be far more local than national. The result has belied this expectation. The Indian National Congress won decisively, over 200 seats, and for the first time since the 1960s, is able to form a government in Delhi without any major allies. This is a remarkable feat, given that the Congress ran an election promising more of the same, a certain tonic for defeat in anti-incumbency democratic politics. It projected the current Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as its leader, even as it had the various scions of the Nehru family as the central icons of the party and of its campaigning (Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi both won their seats this election). Little suggested that the Congress would do better than it did in 2004 (with 145 seats).

The Congress’ victory came at the expense of various regional parties, and the Left. Its gains were taken directly from the Left (in West Bengal and Kerala), and from two other regions where it had previously been shut-out (Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh). The Left suffered, in many ways, from the perils of governance in neo-liberal times: able to bring justice to the countryside, the Left faced a growing unemployment problem that it could not solve through a feasible alternative. Attempts to break the intractable bind of jobless industrial growth failed, not only because the Left had to operate within the confines of bourgeois law, but also because of the privations of governance in regions without the treasury of oil. The Left’s allies in places such as Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh had an overly expedient relationship to anti-capitalism; the voters saw right through them. The Left had engineered a Third Front, which, at one time, projected as its prime ministerial candidate the leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Mayawati. The BSP was originally the party of the most oppressed, Dalit, castes, but it has since crafted itself as a wily player, making alliances with Brahmins to fend off the dominant, rural castes who are not at either end of the hypothetical caste totem pole. Mayawati’s party maintained its 2004 position, making no gains.

The party of political Hinduism (the Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP) won 138 seats in 2004, but this time could only pull off 117. Confined to a few states, the BJP suffered from the gradual demise of its irascible politics: when one of its candidates, Varun Gandhi (another great-grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru, as it turns out), made anti-Muslim statements, it dented the BJP’s claim to being an inclusive party. Its leader, L. K. Advani, wanted desperately to be the next Prime Minister, but his close association with the politics of animus failed him. Concern for their economic well-being trumped any anxiety among the voters about national security, so that the BJP had little to run on. Both the Congress and the BJP have close ties to big money, and to economic “reform” (which is essentially the process to dismantle the public sector), but the Congress unlike the BJP also has some measure of commitment to social welfare. The siren of national security was so weak that the BJP was unable to make capital out of the Mumbai terror attacks of last year. The BJP’s alliance partners have also failed it, afraid for good reason that Hindu supremacy’s engine might be slowly winding down. Advani has resigned as leader of his party. In the wings stands Narendra Modi, the leader from Gujarat, who is known for his efficiency and his brutality, a combination that chills. The BJP is not down and out, only wounded. Its social base has not abandoned it, even as the party has left them down electorally.

If the BJP lost parts of its coalition in the run-up to the election, the Congress too lost several of its partners. Three of them went on to form the Fourth Front (these are the main parties that emerged out of the Socialist tradition, but they are now essentially parties of the Other Backward Castes who dominate the political culture along the Gangetic plain of northern India). This election was not kind to them. One of their leaders, Ram Vilas Pawan, holds a record in the Guinness Book for the largest margin of victory in a democratic election; but that was in 1977. He lost his seat this year. The Congress went alone in the politically fertile belt along the Ganges, and it emerged more victorious than even it anticipated. It won 22 of the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh, a much better showing than its 9 in 2004, and the Samajwadi Party, which will certainly support the Congress government, won an equal number. Regional parties remained strong, although most of them held power in their states based on the reasonably good governance of their parties in the state governments (so that Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal-United and Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal both won in Bihar and Orissa respectively). They have limited national ambition.

Contributions of the Left.

Fawning supplicants hastily said that the turn-around in the Congress came because of the energy expended by the descendants of the Nehru family. “All credit goes to Rahul Gandhi for single handedly reviving the Congress in Uttar Pradesh,” said Jyotiraditya Scindia, the scion of an ex-royal family who is in the Congress high command. This is not a scientific judgment. More is gained by looking backward. The Congress went into what seemed like terminal decline from the 1970s to the mid-1990s. The emergence of regional parties with a commitment to political devolution put paid to the idea that such a vast region as India must have only one highly centralized party; local issues lost out in the centrifugal Congress. Apart from this institutional thrust against the Congress, the main reason for its decline was ideological. Till the 1970s, the Congress’ claim to legitimacy rested on the immense prestige of its anti-colonial role, and upon this foundation grew the two pillars of its policy, secularism and socialism. The socialism began to fray after the two oil shocks, and as India’s midnight’s children, those of the elite born after 1947, felt compelled to liberate themselves from India’s poor. This is what they meant by “liberalization,” and one of its main architects was the current Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh. A brief foray into populism in the early 1970s was abandoned as the Congress tried to govern without democracy (through an Emergency regime in 1975-77) and then through the politics of identity rather than the politics of well-being (in the 1980s). But as the Congress walked the identity road, it was outflanked from the Right by the BJP. The Congress limped on, but always a pale shadow.

In 2004, the Congress was able to return to power at the head of a vast coalition that was united by its disgust at six years of BJP rule. It is at this juncture that the Left forced the Congress to slightly shift its disregard for social democracy, and to enact several measures to benefit the impoverished rural workers, in particular. The Congress needed the Left, whose outside support not only gave stability to the government, but it also provided the Congress with the policy positions to reach populations abandoned by New Delhi. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) was one such instrument, brought into force in 2005 to give adults who live in rural areas hundred days of employment a year to do public works at the minimum wage. Despite sneers from the Congress’ own economists (many of whom cut their teeth in Washington with the World Bank and IMF), the Congress political brass agreed with the Left that this project should be a priority. The NREGA provided a floor beneath families devastated by rural unemployment. Mihir Shah of the Central Employment Guarantee Council says that although “India’s countryside continues to be characterized by a sluggish agrarian economy, marred by malnourished children and anaemic women, as also suicide by farmers in distress, there is no question that NREGA has put money into the hands of the poorest of the poor on a scale that is unprecedented in the history of independent India.” The NREGA burnished the Congress’ image.

In July 2008, when the Left broke its tie with the Congress, the Finance Minister P. Chidambaram hastily told the business press that the Left’s departure will speed up the process of the “economic reforms.” Chidambaram, one of those least enthused by the NREGA and other social welfare provisions, was keen to move on the GDP. “What do they want us to do,” he had earlier asked of the Left. “Do they only want to distribute poverty in this country? Those who say the market growth is irrelevant and those who say the growth only helps the rich are the worst enemies of the poor.” The Left blocked the Banking Regulation Bill that would have given Indian banks over to their counterparts in London and New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong. The Left also protected both the insurance and the pension sector from control by the wiles of international finance capital. India has been buffered from the current financial crisis largely because the border guards of finance were not withdrawn. Had they left the financial borders unguarded, the crisis would have been even deeper (about 600,000 workers lost their jobs in these past few months, crop prices have dampened the hopes of an agricultural recovery, and agrarian suicides continue – but things could have been worse). The Congress benefitted from the Left’s vigilance.

Little distinguishes the Congress from the BJP on matters of “economic reform.” But the Congress has a softer spot, making it more amenable to the kind of social welfare schemes that capital can swallow. Additionally, the Congress is programmatically opposed to communalism, the politics of hatred that is central to political Hinduism. The Congress has a historical link to secularism, and it long recognized that for it to recover its political ground it must once more be seen as the party of Muslims and oppressed castes. Hence, early in the tenure of his government, Manmohan Singh appointed the Sachar Commission to investigate barriers that hold back Indian Muslims from full equality. The Commission’s frankness earned it plaudits from all sections, but especially from Indian Muslims, who had faced over two decades of ascendancy by the very nastiest face of political Hinduism. Rather than riots the Congress promised degrees and capital. Soberness marked the Congress-led government’s approach to things that mattered directly to Indian Muslims – its response to the Mumbai attacks was not jingoism, which would certainly have led to attacks on Indian Muslims. The seriousness of purpose to seek a diplomatic solution prevented the outbreak of a pogrom, something that had become commonplace when the BJP held the reins of power. Indian Muslims and other minorities took shelter in the Congress.

These gestures from the Congress government have much to do with the Left’s role in New Delhi. The probity of the Left gave it more influence than its parliamentary presence should have allowed. But it was this commitment to honesty and its program that also moved the Left to break its tie with the Congress in 2004. The issue here was the Congress’ foreign policy, a part of governance that is often least important during an election, unless the issue is one of war. Since the 1990s, the Congress has been eager to forge a political alliance with the United States (and Israel), a logical step if India was to become one more platform for the Washington Consensus. Small steps brought the ruling elites of Washington and New Delhi closer together, and by 9/11, the links had become very close. The Indian Left and wizened nationalists within the Congress threw themselves in the middle, preventing the complete fusion of Indian foreign policy with Washington’s needs. It was this alliance that refused Bush’s request for Indian troops to Iraq in 2003. But the Left could not win all the battles, having failed to prevent India’s agreement on the US policy to isolate Iran. As part of a quid pro quo, the US government validated India’s nuclear program and India voted with the US against Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency. It was on the issue of the nuclear deal that the Left withdrew its support to the Congress government in 2008. The issue remains important, but it is not one that is immediately related to more pressing questions of hunger and homelessness.

The Confederation of Indian Industry hailed the new election result and said that the “reforms” must be “fast tracked.” The Congress’ spokesperson, Jairam Ramesh, explained to the New York Times that this kind of speed could now be the order of the day because “the Left will not have a stranglehold. There will be better cohesion on economic policy. Right now, the priority is to restore high economic growth.” Those in the Congress who lean Left are weakened by the Left’s loss; Mani Shankar Aiyar, who is a Congressman in the Fabian Socialist tradition, lost his seat, which means that that singular Nehruvian voice is lost to the Congress’ parliamentary delegation. It will be filled with those who are enthused with high-tech and stock exchanges, and care only for rural policy when it impacts their own vote banks. If the Congress does follow the advice of Ramesh, as all indicators assume it will, then it will shoot itself in the foot. The mandate it received is not for more “reform,” but for policies such as the NGERA and the Sachar Commission, policies that stem from its original social democratic ideology. But it no longer has the Left as conscience.

Defeat has come to the Left. In its three bastions, the Left held on only to Tripura. In Kerala and West Bengal the verdict was split, but that is not enough for the Communists. In West Bengal, in particular, the Left has over the past few decades swept the parliamentary elections. This was largely a function of its impressive work in the construction of rural democracy, and in the fragmentation of the camp of reaction. This time, the latter united, as the Congress joined hands with its long-time adversary, the Trinamool Congress and various extreme left cults. They united in opposition to the Left Front’s controversial industrialization policy, and in particular to the struggle in Singur (where a Tata car factory was to be built) and in Nandigram (where a ferocious battle broke out over land utilization). The Left was unable to defend both the broad policy and the interpretation of the events in Singur-Nandigram. In Kerala, the Left was undone by factionalism, and once more disagreements over development policy. The largest Communist Party, the CPIM, recognized that this election is a “major setback” for the movement, and that the party must now conduct a “serious examination of the reasons” for its poor performance.

Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and Director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, CT His new book is The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, New York: The New Press, 2007. He can be reached at: vijay.prashad@trincoll.edu

Lok Sabha elections 2009

http://picasaweb.google.com/insypoo/GeneralElections2009KolkataCampaign Modes of industrialisation -- the main issue on which the elections were fought in West Bengal (more specifically in Kolkata) http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090517/jsp/bengal/story_10980294.jsp Revenge complete, cry for peace and lost land

OUR BUREAU

Sayra Biwi (centre) on Saturday. Picture by Pradip Sanyal Nandigram/Singur, May 16: Left a widow by “CPM goons”, Sayra Biwi will whisper a few words of thanks when she kneels down to pray tonight. “My revenge is complete,” said the 33-year-old, a mother of four, as news of Trinamul Congress candidate Subhendu Adhikary’s victory over the CPM’s Lakshman Seth in Tamluk reached Nandigram’s Bainchabari village. “Now we can hope there will be peace here after all.” Sayra’s husband had been killed during the CPM’s “recapture” of Nandigram in November 2007. Today, she played with abir outside her home. “I have been left to bring up my four children on my own, but at least the CPM goons who killed my husband have been defeated,” she said. “When I pray today, I will thank the Almighty for all that He has done for us.” If Nandigram, in East Midnapore, celebrated, so did villages in Singur, where the land war began. But unlike in Singur, part of the Hooghly Lok Sabha seat that Trinamul’s Ratna Dey Nag won and where many hope that their land will now be returned, all that the villagers in Nandigram want is peace. Nearly 1,000 pro-Trinamul villagers, who fled CPM strongholds and took shelter in Maheshpur High School after being terrorised by party workers for “daring” to vote, want to return to their homes. “We expect Trinamul will ensure peace so that we don’t have to flee our homes any longer,” said Sheikh Saidul Ali, 23, a farm labourer from Satengabari. Ali had left home on May 8 morning with wife Jahanara and one-year-old son. It was the third time he had to flee since the Red Army’s November 2007 assault. “I feel happy that the party that stood by us during our agitation against land acquisition has won,” said Abhijit Samanta, 32, who was injured in the March 2007 police firing. “To start with, it can bring peace in Nandigram.” Trinamul’s victory also meant a change in menu for those stranded in the refugee camp at Maheshpur. “For the past eight days we have been living on rice, pumpkin curry and dal. Today, for the first time, we were served rohu fish for lunch. Trinamul leaders came and distributed sweets,” said Sheikh Aksar Ali, 35, who lives in Ranichak. In Singur, Trinamul supporters burst crackers as victory processions wound their way through Beraberi, Ghoshpara, Sahanapara, Saterbheri and Bajemelia. But for the villagers, uppermost on their mind was the return of the land taken over for the Tata Motors project. “We want our land back,” said one as others nodded. “We want our new MP to ensure that,” said Paramita Das, 43, a housewife in Beraberi whose four-bigha land had been acquired. “We are farmers,” said Haripada Das, 65, another landloser. “We feel helpless without our land. We don’t need factories in Singur.” http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090517/jsp/nation/story_10969760.jsp Nano too small to provide shelter to comrades MEGHDEEP BHATTACHARYYA Another defeat Calcutta, May 16: The Nano lost its second battle today. In October, the Left-led government failed to keep the people’s car project in Bengal. Today, the Left parties failed to rid e it to win urban votes against Mamata Banerjee. In its worst poll performance in over three decades, the Left lost all the six parliamentary constituencies — Calcutta South, Calcutta North, Jadavpur, Dum Dum, Barasat and Howrah — in which its main poll plank was Mamata’s anti-industry image. To counter the Trinamul Congress chief’s Maa, Maati, Maanush chant, the Left had drawn up a poll campaign with the exit of the Nano as one of the central themes. By pitching the world’s cheapest car against Mamata’s giant cut-outs, CPM strategists tried to woo urban vot ers by blaming Mamata for the shift of the Tata Motor’s small car plant from Singur to Sanand in Gujarat. But the strategy of holding Mamata responsible for Bengal’s failure in becoming Detroit did not pay off and left the CPM wondering what went wrong. “In the past few years, the party was getting more acceptable among the urban voters and that got reflected even during the Calcutta Municipal Corporation p olls…. So, we did not expect such a rout in the city and its suburbs,” a senior CPM leader said. Among the six constituencies in and around the city, Calcutta North consists entirely of urban voters while more than 90 per cent of Calcutta South is urban. “Pro-industry stance of a party is expected to woo a majority of urban voters who depend on industry and service sectors for their livelihood. But it seems that hasn’t worked this time and that comes as a surprise,” said a professor of economics at St Xavier’s College. A case in point is Calcutta South from where Mamata won by a margin of 2,19,571 votes by bagging 57.19 per cent votes. Despite the predominantly urban character of all the seven Assembly segments — Kasba, Behala East, Behala West, Calcutta Port, Bhowanipore, Rashbehari and Ballygunge — she got more than 51 per cent votes in each of them. Trinamul’s Sudip Bandyopadhyay also got more than 51 per cent votes in all the seven Assembly segments in Calcutta North — Chowringhee, Entally, Beleghata, Jorasanko, Shyampukur, Manicktala and Kashipur-Belgachhia. The CPM’s Sujan Chakraborty lost to Trinamul’s Kabir Suman by 56,706 votes in Jadavpur constituency by upsetting all party calculations. Though the CPM had expected that the Jadavpur Assembly segment would give Sujan a decisive lead, the poll outcome told a different story. In 2004, Sujan got a lead of over 23,000 votes from this Assembly segment, which came down to around 19,000 this time. “There hasn’t been any split in Opposition votes this time and there has been a nation-wide sweep in favour of the Congress. But it is clear that issues like the exit of the Nano has failed to create much impact among the urban voters,” a senior CPM leader said. Sanjukta Ganguly, a first-time voter in Barasat constituency, tried to explain why the Nano issue failed to prevail over Maa, Mati, Manush. The dentist said she the exit of Tata Motors from Singur had upset her but she did not consider the pullout while casting her vote. “A project’s relocation cannot be a poll issue. Mamata has been successful in projecting herself as a leader who stands by the people and that’s why her party has done well,” she said. The Left’s failure to solve the unemployment problem was a much more important issue. The Left’s role as an ally of the UPA for over four years also cost it dearly in the urban constituencies which supported Mamata’s change chant and gave her a thumping victory. “The only high point for them was pulling out of the government on the nuclear deal issue… Instead of supporting the government from outside and creating trouble on major policy issues, they should have joined the government and done something for the people of the state,” said Deep Banerjee, a techie in his early thirties. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Mamata-Banerjee-Riding-in-on-peoples-car/articleshow/4541432.cms Mamata Banerjee: Riding in on people's car KOLKATA: Cheap cotton saree wrapped clumsily, chappals flapping, hysterical pitch, and eyes smouldering in chronic rage, Mamata Banerjee punches above her weight. She has finally kayoed the Mighty Marxists. She had joined battle as a mauled David. Her Trinamool party's Lok Sabha tally was down to just one, and her Assembly strength stripped to a mere 35, Didi had nothing to lose. She played the wild card -a high-stakes gamble on Singur and Nandigram -and won. Having arm-twisted the CPM into offering a compromise in Singur, she had with typical cussedness stonewalled the gesture.But she refused to blink despite the charges of her sabotaging West Bengal's big chance of industrial salvation. She had shrewdly read the public's anti-Left mood. She went for the jugular. A high-pitched, no-compromise posture on Singur might have put off urban voters, but Mamata knew that, outside city limits, politics was bare-knuckled. She whipped the land-acquisition fear into a frenzy. It was a primeval insecurity guaranteed to make every farmer rise in revolt. She may have driven away the people's car, but she has roared up in style. She carefully kept up her homespun image, refusing to move out of her single-storey, ramshackle Kalighat house. Losses haven't tamed her aggression, or her unpredictability. Instead it has reaffirmed her mantra: if you get an inch, make sure you grab a foot. Mamata has finally humbled the Left Front. She doesn't botch it up, she could well be the rallying point of all those wanting to bring down Bengal's Red fortress. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Trinamool-paints-Kolkata-green/articleshow/4541302.cms Trinamool paints city green 17 May 2009, 0528 hrs IST, Prasenjit Mund & Sumati Yengkhom, TNN It was noon, and abir seller Sreeram Shaw was quietly putting away the red stock under the cart. There was just a mound of green abir on display, which he topped up with another sackful and carefully smoothed it into a peak. “No one will buy red today. None has since morning. The green one was selling well and now more and more people are asking for it,” said the youngster. Beside him, another youth put up his cart on Free School Street. Mantu Shaw had come in late - after seeing the Lok Sabha trends on TV — and he did not bother to bring any red abir. “Bhalo korechis. Lal cholchhe na. Green heavy bikri (Good thing you didn’t bring red. It’s not selling. Green is going great),” Sreeram told him. “This is what they call change, isn’t it,” Mantu replied. On Judgment Day, it seemed Holi had visited Kolkata a second time. But there was just one colour to be seen in the city — Trinamool Congress’ green, from north to south. Mamata Banerjee’s foot soldiers went out colouring everyone green, whether they liked it or not, including Canadian tourists Doug and Toby on Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road. The duo, volunteers for Missionaries of Charity, looked bemused. “Elections back home are not this much fun,” said Doug. “We were not there for Holi, but now we know what it’s like.” In Kolkata North’s Rajabazar, where CPM’s Md Salim was supposed to be the be-all and end-all, hundreds of Trinamool supporters ruled the streets on bikes. A bunch of them blocked APC Road, zeroed in on a truck and commandeered it. “Gadi ho gaya,” one of them shouted and about 50 of them piled into the back. Green abir was smeared on the bewildered driver and he was made to turn around and drive away for “celebrations”. “We were angry with Md Salim, and we showed him that,” one of them shouted. A loud cheer went up. A group of glum-looking men stood on the other side of the road, with a dazed look. On CIT Road, the north-south divide seemed to have melted. One flank of the road falls in Kolkata North constituency, the other in Kolkata South. In 2004, one side was red — thanks to Md Salim’s landslide win — and the other green, after Mamata’s fourth consecutive victory. Cut to 2009, and there is only the whiff of Trinamool’s ‘joda phool’ on either side. On Anwar Shah Road in Kolkata South, a giant cutout of Mamata wore a fresh garland while a bunch of 20-or so supporters danced under it. They grabbed hold of a CPM supporter - a neighbour in the para - and dumped fistfuls of abir on him. “Why me...,” the CPM man complained. “Ekhon Aamra-i shob (now we are supreme),” the crowd replied. At Hazra crossing - Mamata’s stronghold - Trinamool supporters sped around whooping and honking, three or four to a bike. In North Kolkata, CPM workers quietly made way for a boisterous Trinamool procession past CPM leader Sudhangsu Seal’s house. “The Left’s young electorate has diminished and its impact is clear today,” muttered cadre Anil Das. At Jadavpur University, M Tech hopefuls Appayan De and Jaideep Dutta were discussing the poll results. “We guess the Congress-Trinamool alliance worked. People wanted to see a Congress government at the Centre and Mamata Banerjee as a minister again. They don’t want the Left complicating things,” De said. The feeling was echoed by a bunch of Trinamool supporters in Ranikuthi. “The mahajot (alliance) played a crucial role. People wanted a Congress-led secular government, without the Left trying to trip it at every hurdle. Remember, Mamata was excellent during her terms as central minister, especially when she had the railway portfolio,” said Bijoy Halder. “Assembly chalo is our next cry. We have won the semi-finals. The finals will be held sooner than you think,” said Barun De Mitra, a counting agent for Mamata. At a tea shop, some 20 feet away, sat a group of glum looking CPM men, with multicoloured hair. They had started the day with red abir - until someone dunked a bucket of green abir on their heads. “Dhele diechhe (they have poured it on),” said one of them. (Inputs from Devjyot Ghoshal & Arpit Basu) Sangbad Pratidin

Election 2009: The Singur Issue

The Statesman

Suhrid, a bother for CPM

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=22&id=250506&usrsess=1

Rajib Chatterjee
KOLKATA, April. 9: With the murder of Tapasi Malik (in picture) still fresh in the memories of the people of Singur, the CPI-M Singur zonal committee members are battling unwelcome queries that cropped up after they engaged Mr Suhrid Dutta, the prime accused in Tapasi murder case, in party's poll campaign.
Mr Dutta is leading the party's poll campaign in Singur for CPI-M contestant from Hooghly parliamentary constituency.
After Mr Suhrid Dutta, CPI-M Hooghly district committee member and prime accused in Tapasi Malik murder case, took over the charge of party's zonal committee, local Trinamul Congress leaders in Singur are wasting no time to earn sympathy votes by roping in Tapasi's parents ~ Mr Manoranjan Malik and Mrs Malina Malik in their poll campaign.
To get maximum political mileage, the Malik couple are holding rallies at various places in Singur and describing how their daughter was murdered allegedly by “henchmen hired by Mr Dutta”.
“Being a father of a martyr, I urge the people of the state to pull down Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee from his chair. He is one who backed the man who murdered my daughter. My innocent daughter was killed by Mr Dutta's henchmen for daring to oppose the CPI-M. I can never forgive him. He is roaming freely in Singur and delivering intellectual speeches. I want to see him behind bars,” Mr Malik had said in a poll campaign of Trinamul Congress at Bhadreswar a few days ago.
Mr Becharam Manna, Trinamul Congress leader and convener of the Singur Krishi Jomi raksha Committee said: “The CPI-M will realise shortly that it has made another blunder by engaging Mr Dutta in poll campaigning. People of Singur are not one with the CPI-M's decision. Local CPI-M leaders are facing unwelcome questions for using Mr Dutta in poll campaign. In election rallies, we are highlighting how the CPI-M leader had hired killers to murder Tapasi.”
“With Mr Dutta leading the party's election rallies, a section of CPI-M cadres in Singur apprehend that the existing support base of the party would be hit hard. Some senior CPI-M leaders of Singur have reportedly opposed the decision of the party to engage Mr Dutta in poll campaign. Since it was the decision of the party's state committee, local CPI-M leaders are not opening up in the public,” said a CPI-M insider.
Mr Dibakar Das, CPI-M Hooghly district committee member from Singur, however claimed: “There is no controversy within the party over the issue. People are not raising any questions because they know it very well that Mr Dutta was framed. He is neither a rapist nor a murderer.”

CPM to steer clear of Singur

http://www.thestatesman.net/page.arcview.php?clid=22&id=282427&usrsess=1

Pranesh Sarkar
KOLKATA, April 6: Though Singur sparked off nationwide controversy after the small car project of the Tata Motors moved out of the state owing to stiff resistance put up by the Trinamul-led Opposition over “forceful acquisition of farmland”, the CPI-M has decided not to use the issue as a major campaign tool.
The decision has come at a time when it was being predicted that the CPI-M could leave the Opposition in an uncomfortable position, especially in the urban areas, ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. It was also being assumed that the CPI-M would leave no stone unturned to “expose” the “anti-development” stand of the Opposition and Singur could be a major weapon for this.
While replying to a question posted in its election campaign website, the CPI-M leadership made it clear that it would focus on the failure of the UPA government to address the concerns of common people during its regime. This apart, the party would also focus on the threat of communal politics of the BJP and the alternative politics advocated by the CPI-M and the Left parties to address the challenges faced by the nation.
Regarding Singur, the party leadership said: “What happened in Singur can only serve to illustrate the bankruptcy of forces like the Trinamul Congress which would be referred to as and when appropriate.”
However, experts said the party has intentionally kept the issue out of campaigning agenda as it would invite fresh controversies over acquisition of farm land to set up industries which could hit its rural vote bank. It can also be recalled that the Left partners had also raised their voices against forceful acquisition of farm land in Singur. If the controversy is raised again, it won't be very comfortable for the party.
It can also be recalled that the Left partners had initially opposed inclusion of Singur and Nandigram issues in the joint appeal of the Left Front. However, the issues were later mentioned in the appeal very briefly avoiding all controversial points. However, though the party decided not to use Singur issue as a major tool in the Lok Sabha polls, it has admitted that a mistake had been committed in Nandigram. Replying to another question, the party leadership said in West Bengal, there is a constant fragmentation and division of land holdings. And as a high proportion of rural populace is dependent on agriculture along with a high proportion of landlessness, it is essential that these people find avenues for employment which could be provided by industrial development.