POLITICS-INDIA: Communists Meets Mixed Fortunes in Polls

By Sujoy Dhar Reprint | | Print |

R L Bindu and Sujoy Dhar

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM-KOLKATA, India, May 15 2001 (IPS) - Communist politicians had different electoral fortunes in last week’s state elections in India, suffering a humiliating loss in the tiny coastal state of Kerala but successfully defending its hold in the eastern state of West Bengal.

Kerala made history in 1957 by electing a communist government through ballot for the first time in the world, but the state has now voted yet another communist government out of power.

But up north, West Bengal renewed its faith in the Marxists — the world’s longest-serving elected communist government — with a vengeance. Voters in this state, which has been ruled by the communists since 1977, gave them a sixth term and 200 of 294 seats in the state assembly.

In the days since the May 10 polls for legislative assemblies in five Indian states, varying observations have arisen about the reasons for the ballot performance of the Left Front, a nine-party coalition left by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M).

In Kerala, voters in effect said they wanted change and acted as they had many times in the past two decades — thrown out the incumbents. They opted to have the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) lead the state, giving it a two-thirds majority in the 140-member Kerala assembly and leaving the Left with 40 seats.

But in West Bengal, the Marxists survived the so-called ‘incumbency factor’ that some say determined the election trend in Kerala and trounced their main challenger, an alliance between the national opposition Congress Party and Trinamool Congress.

In Kerala, politicians with the Congress Party attributed the Marxists’ defeat to poor performance while in power. “It’s a clear verdict against the misrule of the Marxists,” concluded Congress Working Committee member A K Antony, leader of the UDF who is likely to lead the Congress-led coalition government in the state.

“The victory for the Congress is not a political one,” said Chief Minister and CPI(M) politburo member E K Nayanar, who until this election had held the record of holding the chief minister post for more than 4,000 days in three terms.

Nayanar said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Hindu nationalist party that leads the coalition that rules India, and the opposition Congress party had a secret understanding to boot the Left Front out of Kerala.

He also said the Vajpayee government’s “anti-farmer” policies had a severe impact on the economy of the state, though his government took steps to ease the farmers’ sufferings.

Kerala politics are different from other parts of India. Kerala’s voters have always tended to vote for changes in government and many in this highly literate state believe a change of government once in every five years is necessary to prevent corruption.

Still, several factors went against the Communists in Kerala. Their policies on education, liquor, economy and others proved costly for them. Though the party could project decentralisation with people’s participation as its biggest achievement, there were widespread allegations that only CPI(M) activists benefited from the programme.

Contradictions in the Marxists’ approach toward the changing world environment have also affected their image. The Marxists have been accused of blindly opposing globalisation and liberalisation without showing any willingness to reap the benefits from it.

Once they opposed computers, but today Marxists are the biggest advocates of computerisation in Kerala. Similarly, they opposed reforms in the educational sector when they were in the opposition but implemented the same when they came to power.

“Such an attitude of the Marxist party was pushing the state backward,” said one political analyst.

But in West Bengal, the Marxists led by Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee got a thumping majority in the state assembly and fought the fatigue factor against a 24-year-old government, against which grievances are many.

Many of the state’s 48.7 million voters remember the Left’s record, especially in the redistribution of land to the rural poor.

“The people of this state have known us for 24 years. They know what we are capable of doing and what we have not been able to do. I greet them for reposing their faith in us,” said a beaming Bhattacharjee.

Bhattacharjee sold to voters the dream of a new, improved Left, during whose watch industrialisation, education and health care reached their peak.

“Industrialisation will be the top priority of our new government. We will not seek a path of confrontation but our government will not endorse the policies of the federal government led by the BJP, which left foreign companies prey on the domestic market,” he added.

The Marxists’ opponent, the Trinamool Congress-Congress alliance led by former federal railway minister Mamata Banerjee, had told voters it was time for a change in government. ‘Ulte din palte din’ (‘topple and change’) and ‘Hoi ebar noi never’ (either this time or never) was her campaign slogan.

Refuting her slogan, Bhattacharjee said: “The people of West Bengal want change. So we are changing too.”

But the Monday editorial of ‘The Telegraph’, the largest English daily in eastern India that is critical of the Left’s rule, said the Marxists should not be complacent. “Driven partially by Ms Banerjee’s campaign and slogan-mongering, this election was seen as a vote for change,” it said.

“It would be a mistake to read the verdict of the people as support for the status quo. The people have voted for change but not the kind of change that Ms Banerjee and her claque of supporters expected,” it added.

Now that voters have seen in Bhattacharjee the “face of change within the CPI(M),” the editorial said, “it is incumbent upon Mr Bhattacharjee to honour the responsibility that the people have bestowed upon him.”

Meantime, both Communist politicians and Congress figures are saying the poll results show Indians’ dissatisfaction with the BJP- led Vajpayee government, which has been reeling from an arms bribery scandal.

Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi said the election results show that the Vajpayee government’s “anti-farmer” policies had affected the states that went to polls last week

CPI(M) officials said the results herald trouble ahead for the Vajpayee government on account of what they called economic policies that have hurt the country.

Both political camps focused on a party that ‘lost’ in the polls — the BJP, which was but a marginal player in the vote and failed to make headway in both Kerala and West Bengal.