At the same time as INDIA flounders, with one ally after one other both saying plans to go solo or becoming a member of forces with the BJP, the Left events stay steadfast in its religion on the usefulness of the alliance.
The Congress additionally seems unfazed as allies just like the Trinamool Congress (TMC) threatened to stroll out of the grouping over its closeness with the Left. “I won’t give you (Congress) a single seat until you leave the company of the Left,” TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee had warned the Congress.
The Congress, nonetheless, selected to welcome Left leaders to Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in West Bengal. CPI(M) normal secretary Sitaram Yechury is a distinguished face on the excessive desk of Opposition boards, typically seen having intense discussions with Rahul.
Critics of the Congress preserve that, aside from the electoral battlefield the place the 2 events have allied again and again, the Left in recent times have continued to affect the Congress decision-making in issues of technique, too.
“Who advises the Gandhis? Former AISA — students’ body of CPI(ML) — leader Sandeep Singh, who served as the JNUSU president in 2007, is the personal secretary of Priyanka Gandhi. Rahul seems comfortable in the company of CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, who is often seen whispering into his ears like close aides do. It may sound like a stretch, but all these things are out there for people to make their own interpretations,” a TMC MP mentioned.
The contradictions in Congress-Left dalliance have additionally been a matter of debate — as additionally a supply of embarrassment — for leaders of each the rival events in Kerala whereas there’s an understanding in West Bengal.
Whereas CPI(M)’s Bengal secretary Mohammed Salim joined Rahul’s yatra in Murshidabad, the Congress stayed away from Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan-led protest towards the Centre at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar.
The 2 events collectively fought the 2016, 2021 meeting elections in Bengal. Beforehand, the Left Entrance, beneath the astute Harkishan Singh Surjeet, lent essential exterior help to the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) authorities in 2004. This continued until 2008, when it exited the alliance opposing the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal. Former CPI normal secretary A.B. Bardhan shared a detailed rapport with UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi throughout the UPA years.
Salim instructed ThePrint that each in West Bengal and on the nationwide stage, the CPI(M) and the Congress are preventing “common enemies Trinamool Congress and the BJP”. “We knew Mamata Banerjee will not stay in the (INDIA) alliance because she wants to help the BJP,” the West Bengal CPI(M) state secretary added.
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‘Duality’ in direction of Congress
For essentially the most half, nonetheless, a duality has marked the Left’s angle in direction of the Congress over the many years. Professor of Modern Indian Historical past at JNU, Aditya Mukherjee, mentioned whereas the Communists labored very intently with the Congress’s Staff and Peasants Get together, there was a marked shift in 1928 after the sixth Congress of the Communist Worldwide.
“Till then, the communists were following Lenin’s line of working on broad fronts representing anti-imperialist movements. But in 1928, under (Joseph) Stalin, the communists adopted a line that non-working class struggles against imperialism cannot work. In that characterisation, Congress was not a working class party. As a result, the communists lost their influence in the Congress at a time when it was leading popular movements such as the civil disobedience movement, anti-Simon Commission protests,” Mukherjee mentioned.
Inside 5 years, there was one other change in place after the seventh congress of the Communist Worldwide. The Left leaders now began working with the Congress beneath the umbrella of the Congress Socialist Get together, solely to steer clear of the Stop India Motion in 1942.
“The communists changed their position from saying that WW-II is an imperialist war, in which we will not participate, but once the Soviet Union was attacked, they said it is a People’s War. We must support the British because the Nazis, the Axis powers have attacked the Soviet Union,” Mukherjee mentioned. However many grassroots communists continued to again the Stop India Motion regardless of the social gathering’s flip-flops on the central stage, he added.
Submit Independence, whereas the Congress emerged as the most important social gathering within the 1952 polls, securing 364 seats with 45 p.c votes, the undivided CPI completed second, albeit a distant one, successful 16 of the 49 seats it contested, polling 3.29 p.c of the entire votes.
The social gathering’s efficiency, nonetheless, appeared spectacular notably contemplating that it not solely stayed away from the Stop India Motion, but in addition dismissed Indian independence as a “sham” until 1951. These have been the years when Jawaharlal Nehru was a “running dog of imperialism” for the Communists.
It was solely after B.T. Ranadive was changed by Ajoy Ghosh as the overall secretary of the CPI in 1951 when the social gathering determined to work beneath the framework of parliamentary politics.
However the social gathering’s antipathy in direction of the Congress remained as its socialist tilt and championing of a non-aligned overseas coverage was but to return to the fore. Unsurprisingly, the CPI considered the Congress as a celebration beholden to “British and American imperialists”.
“What has come is the replacement of a British Viceroy and his councillon by an Indian President and his ministers, of white bureaucrats by brown bureaucrats, and a bigger share in the loot of Indian people for the Indian monopolists collaborating with the imperialists,” the CPI ballot manifesto noticed.
The Congress was not sparing in its hostility to the CPI both. A lot in order that in 1959, the Centre, with Nehru on the helm, dismissed the communist authorities in Kerala led by Chief Minister E.M.S Namboodiripad. Until date, the Congress faces criticism for the transfer.
The rising proximity of India with the Soviet Union and pursuit of bloc neutrality throughout the Chilly Warfare, led to a piece of the CPI softening its stand in direction of the Congress, wrote creator Praful Bidwai in his e-book ‘The Phoenix Moment: Challenges Confronting the Indian Left’.
However variations between the Soviet Union and China, coupled with contrasting positions on coping with the Congress, led to a cut up within the CPI, with the pro-China and anti-Congress faction forming the CPI (Marxist) two years after the 1962 Sino-Indian warfare, he mentioned.
“The Left’s growth as a force in national politics became dependent on its strategy of allying either with the ruling Congress or its major adversaries. Here the two parties took the opposite approach. This benefited both to an extent in different ways, but extracted a high price through ideological confusion and political disarray. The Left acquired the profile of a kingmaker in the 1990s, but committed a ‘historic blunder’ by refusing to lead a non-BJP, non-Congress government in 1996,” Bidwai wrote.
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Seventies & onwards
Whereas the CPI(M) remained hostile to the Congress for a very long time, the CPI not simply supported the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi, but in addition allied with the Congress to kind governments in Kerala for almost a decade ranging from 1970.
It was between 1977 and 1982 that the CPI revised its line, and that’s how the Left Entrance in West Bengal or the Left Democratic Entrance (LDF) in Kerala happened.
In 1989, the help of the Left events and the BJP was instrumental within the formation of the V.P. Singh-led non-Congress Nationwide Entrance authorities. The United Entrance authorities between 1996 and 1998 additionally noticed the participation of the Left events.
On the similar time, in states like West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala, the Left events and the Congress remained adversaries. The gradual rise of the BJP, nonetheless, moved the needle, because the Left and the Congress once more started collaborating, as seen in 2004 when the UPA got here to energy.
The Left events didn’t simply present exterior help to the UPA until 2008, but in addition performed a key position within the formulation of insurance policies starting from RTI to MNREGA as Left-aligned activists and teachers have been a part of the Nationwide Advisory Council (NAC) which guided the federal government on coverage issues.
The NAC was disbanded after the Narendra Modi authorities got here to energy in 2014.
Prof. Mukherjee attributes the numerous shifts within the Left’s place vis-a-vis the Congress to the truth that “they have not questioned their basic theoretical premises.”
“So even when they shift away from that sectarian dogmatic position (of not allying with the Congress), they do it pragmatically. They do not do it by reexamining their position. Euro Communism tried to question the dogmatic line. They gave up the notion of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The communists theoretically never undertook that exercise. While their leadership may occasionally do the pragmatic thing, their cadre is still trained in a completely different theory. The communist mind still remains sectarian and that keeps resurfacing and unfortunately damages their long-term impact,” he mentioned.
Commenting on the tie-up between the Left and the Congress in Bengal in 2016, Jadavpur College Prof. Om Prakash Mishra, who as a Congress chief was a key participant within the formation of the alliance, mentioned regardless of objections from the state management, he sought to persuade the social gathering’s excessive command of its feasibility.
The 2 events, nonetheless, stopped wanting calling their partnership an alliance, dubbing it as a seat-sharing settlement. Ultimately, the TMC received 211 of the 294 complete meeting seats, the CPI(M) 26 and the Congress 44, with a vote share of 44.9, 19.75 and 12.25 p.c.
Mishra, who later joined the TMC, pitched a Left-Congress alliance in Bengal even for the 2019 normal elections, nevertheless it discovered no takers. In 2018, the variations within the CPI(M) relating to cooperation with the Congress got here to the fore, with Yechury advocating that the potential of an “understanding” be stored open, even because the foyer led by former social gathering normal secretary Prakash Karat opposed it.
Ultimately, the CPI(M)’s twenty second and twenty third Get together Congress in 2018 and 2022 adopted the road that given its primary hyperlink to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) — in response to the CPI(M) web site — the BJP is the “main threat. So both the BJP and Congress cannot be treated as equal dangers. However, there cannot be a political alliance with the Congress party.”
It successfully meant that the CPI(M) stored the door open for seat-sharing agreements.
Within the 2021 West Bengal polls, the Left events and the Congress shared seats together with the Indian Secular Entrance (ISF). But it surely got here a cropper once more, because the TMC stormed again to energy, and the BJP emerged because the principal opposition social gathering. Each the Congress and the Left Entrance drew a clean, and their mixed vote share was 7.66 per cent, down by 24 share factors from 2016.
In keeping with political analyst Snigdhendu Bhattacharya, the Congress and the Left Entrance can’t put up a solo present in West Bengal. “Congress is limited to Malda and Murshidabad, but it has lost ground to the TMC since the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and that is reflected in the 2021 assembly polls data. The Congress alone is unlikely to win a single seat. This winnability perception influences supporters,” he mentioned.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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