M. K. Bhadrakumar
THE Pandora’s box has been opened within the month of the stunning election results in the Kerala state assembly election as the Enforcement Directorate under the Union finance minister (re)opened an investigation on Pinarayi’s family, while on a parallel track, Communist Party of India (Marxist) pinned the blame for its electoral rout on the issue of the narrative of the Congress Party during the election campaign that the CPM was hand in glove with the BJP. Indeed, politics is very much a matter of public perceptions and the two tracks will create some synergy in the stormy period ahead in Kerala politics.
That said, the CPM also had propagated, episodically at least, that it was Congress who was conniving with the BJP to defeat the Left Front in the state elections. But then, apparently, the CPM narrative failed to gain traction and did not translate into electoral votes. This anomaly demands an explanation, considering that the Left traditionally excels in getting its message across to the electorate, given its disciplined and motivated cadres and a well-oiled propaganda machinery.
Curiously, what turned into a tsunami of support for the Congress-led UDF can only be explained as a massive transfer of the Left’s electorate support. This shift also included the Left’s traditional support base, apart from the migration of the Muslim voters almost en bloc who felt estranged that CPM was hobnobbing with Islamophobic communal elements. Simply put, there is no question that the election results reflected a widespread disillusionment on the part of the electorate with the LDF. On this score, it is churlish to blame the Congress, leave alone question the “very purpose of the INDIA bloc.”
The factors behind this strategic shift of a big chunk of the LDF’s support base need to be examined rationally rather than being turned into a blame game. Or else, what happened in West Bengal in the 2011 state election, ending 34 years of Left Front, may potentially repeat in Kerala. And such an eventuality will be a tragedy for progressive politics since the towering presence of the Left Front in the political space in Kerala remains an imperative need from a long term perspective.
Suffice it to say that one doesn’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out why such a massive erosion of the LDF support base took place at all, which sent the Left Front reeling. This traumatic defeat can only be called a train crash that was waiting to happen; it should not be belittled as a mere derailment. First of all, it cannot be attributed to any ‘anti-incumbency’ factor.
Arguably, India’s electoral politics, which is in transition, underscore beyond doubt that ‘anti-incumbency’ factor as such is not necessarily at work in the Indian elections in the manner in which it played out previously. Tamil Nadu is in the vanguard. Now we even have a Cockroach Janta Party waiting in the wings. Established political parties in the opposition must wake up to this new reality. They must swim together or will drown together. After all, the BJP is increasingly able to secure renewed mandates. On the other hand, Tamil Nadu elections showed that even in favourable conditions, a ruling dispensation cannot be complacent.
Besides, the groundswell of mass disaffection spreading across the country, as evident in the rousing welcome given to Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke on Saturday, is waiting to be garnered. It speaks volumes that a retired Indian Navy Commander felt after ‘self-reflection’ to participate.
Yet, the CPM, awfully, embarrassingly erred by choosing that very Saturday to kickstart a brawl with India’s main opposition party, Congress, when something of momentous significance just began unfolding in the national capital at Jantar Mantar, hardly a couple of kilometres away from the party headquarters. It almost seemed that the CPM leadership lived in another planet.
The INDIA bloc’s fortunes in the 2029 general election may not be radically affected if the CPM were to pull out of the opposition alliance. In fact, the meeting on Monday afternoon in Delhi was well-attended by 25 opposition parties. It is only appropriate that the CPM was represented — even if only notionally. Rather, the big question will be what happens to the CPM if it marginalises itself. Does it have a future outside the INDIA bloc?
Succinctly put, it is absurd to cut the nose to spite the face. Such excessively self-destructive squabbling in public view can only be counter-productive. Worse still, it will be seen by the empowered Malayali voter only as sheer petulance. There used to be excellent communication channels at personal level between the Congress and CPM leaderships under late General Secretary Sitaram Yechury’s tactful, far-sighted stewardship, which helped iron out wrinkles quietly.
The worst part could be that such a calibrated blame game gets turned into a digression eventually to shelve any serious effort to spotlight the root causes of the LDF’s electoral rout in Kerala, which are actually not far to seek, and can no longer be ignored. In the transformative period that the country’s political economy is passing through and the torrential flow of current political developments, it is futile to try to mark time.
C. Indian Punchline
