Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: May 10, 2009
URL: http://www.dailypioneer.com/175160/Congress-left-to-Left's-mercy.html
Ever since the heir apparent made a complete
dog's breakfast of his party's avowed strategy at a Press conference in Delhi
last Tuesday morning, the Congress has been compelled to wage war on two fronts.
The first, naturally, is the battle on the
ground for votes and seats. The second, unfortunately for it, is a desperate
rearguard battle to allay two parallel perceptions. First, that it is an untrustworthy
and selfish ally, forever willing to kick colleagues when they are down. Second,
that it is terribly jittery about emerging as either the single-largest party
or the largest pre-poll combine - the two yardsticks the President may use
to decide who will have the first throw of the dice.
The hapless Veerappa Moily may shout himself
hoarse proclaiming that the Congress on its own will win 180 seats - Kapil
Sibal added 20 more to the tally - but after Rahul Gandhi's open appeal to
all migratory birds to park in the family zoo there are concerns of the Congress'
initial over-confidence being unwarranted. It is, for example, noteworthy
that the party quietly withdrew the triumphalist 'Jai Ho' campaign before
the fourth phase of voting and the blunderbuss Moily as spokesman before the
announcement of results.
The extent to which Rahul's gaffes will influence
the voting preferences of the aam aadmi is debatable. Information in India
takes a long time to percolate down and, if reports of the voting in Delhi
are anything to go by, the Congress hasn't been too adversely affected. However,
Rahul's remarks are certain to have a bearing on how non-Congress parties,
particularly its other partners in the erstwhile UPA, view the Congress. The
Congress is suffering from a trust deficit.
The past five days, for example, has seen
the revival of talk of a Congress-Left co-operation in the formation of the
next Government. Those who were only too willing to denounce the Left as backward
looking and ideologically hidebound in the aftermath of last July's trust
vote have begun singing the virtues of a "secular" alliance to keep
the BJP out of power. Last Thursday night, the affable Sitaram Yechuri was
more or less accused by a rather shrill anchor of a TV talk show of facilitating
a Hindutva Government led by LK Advani and Narendra Modi.
The pressure on the Left to once again play
ball with the Congress is certain to increase in the coming days. That there
are those in the Left who want the CPI(M) to play the part of the CPI in the
early years of Indira Gandhi is not in doubt. Left-leaning notables and academics
who were recipients of the UPA Government's patronage in the past five years
would like nothing better than to see Prakash Karat kiss and make up with
Manmohan Singh and the Gandhi family. Rahul's identification of a "common
space" which will enable a Congress-Left cooperation has been cited as
evidence of the Congress' return to secular realism. The pressure is on for
the Left to reciprocate at its Politburo meeting on May 18.
To what extent can the Left accommodate the
Congress' desire to have five more years of a coalition led by it? If Karat
is to be believed, the Left is determined to usher a non-Congress, secular
Government. His talks with Naveen Patnaik last Friday afternoon were apparently
centred on the need to draw Sharad Pawar into the Third Front. But is this
the last word?
For the moment it would seem so. The Left
nurtures a deep sense of betrayal after having supported Manmohan's Government
for four years. It made relatively little demands on the Government - certainly
nothing compared to what the Samajwadi Party wanted in the seven months of
its honeymoon with the Congress - and even allowed economic policies it disagreed
with fundamentally. On the Indo-US nuclear deal it was, however, unwilling
to budge. The Left believes the Congress was guilty of deception. The charge
may be exaggerated but the Left believes its own rhetoric. Hence its determination
to teach the Congress a lesson it won't forget in a hurry.
The trust deficit between the Congress and
the Left over the N-Deal is compounded by CPI(M) understanding of political
trends. The Left believes that national parties are slowly but definitely
on the decline and that the ensuing vacuum is being filled up by regional
parties which are broadly centrist and secular. The Left believes that its
greatest chance of influencing the direction of Indian politics is to work
with these regional forces and provide them the articulation and ideological
compass.
The Left has fought the 2009 election with
the understanding that its presence in the 15th Lok Sabha will be considerably
less than in the preceding House. That is not a cause of worry for it. What
matters to it is the influence it will have in a future Government. It does
not require any rocket science to predict that the Left impact will be greater
in a Third Front-led Government than in a coalition led by the Congress. The
Left fears the natural hegemonism of the Congress; it has no fears of any
one party dominating a short-lived Third Front Government propped up by the
Congress. The calculation is that every election will witness shrinkage of
the Congress and the BJP.
The Left will bat for a Third Front Government
till the bitter end. If it can't get its way, it would prefer to sit in the
Opposition (though this may be coupled with strategic abstentions).
The only thing that may prompt a review is
if the 2009 verdict reveals a significant growth of the BJP. If the BJP is
seen to be not on the decline, as was initially thought, the heirs of SA Dange
and Mohit Sen will get a new lease of life. Karat's success depends on both
national parties registering an indifferent performance.
