India’s Communist Parties Must Regain Lost Ground in the Next Elections

By Subhash Kapila

The current bleak Indian political landscape where the ruling Congress Party has miserably failed in governance in all fields despite a continuous six years in power and a listless, disunited and politically ineffective main Opposition Party, the BJP, unable to politically apply brakes on a wayward Congress Government leads one to a single inescapable conclusion.

In the first spell of Congress Government rule from 2004-2009 Congress Government’s waywardness was held in check by its compulsions to rely for political survival on the 60 odd votes of the Communist Parties which were then a part of the ruling UPA I Coalition. The ruling Congress Party was more mindful of the brakes that the Communist Parties would apply on its economic policies and personal foreign policy predilections of the Congress Prime Minister, than any opposition emerging from the BJP. The Congress Party’s unilateralism was therefore held in check by an in-house political equation within the UPA.

Regrettably, with the Communist Parties seats in Lok Sabha having been reduced considerably and the Communist Parties reluctance to unite with the BJP to present a united political opposition to Congress Government unilateralist policies, India stands robbed of any political mechanism to shackle the Congress Government’s political waywardness. The Prime Minister never tires from reeling off economic statistics of India’s economic growth but remains studiously silent on the back-breaking double digit inflation under which the lives of average Indians are reeling.

Since the BJP hardly provides any sense of optimism that it can resurrect itself to regain power in the General Elections in2014 and the Communist Parties political reluctance to be seen as one with the BJP, one can then only hope for that the Communist Parties once again regain their lost political space so that should the Congress Party once again comes into power they can only do so on the strength of a solid Communist Parties bloc.

A solid Communist Parties bloc of 60-70 seats in Parliament would also ensure that the motley collection of casteist parties from the Hindi heartland presently being exploited by the Congress Party to survive in power are not in a position to distort India’s electoral arithmetic. This political rump of casteist parties from the Hindi heartland have thrived on political corruption which provides the Congress Party to use state instruments of investigative agencies to politically coerce them to support the Government.

The Communist Parties to regain lost political space in the Parliament would have a lot of homework to do and it is not such a difficult task since there is adequate time available for the next elections and political circumstances currently obtaining can be exploited by them.

The Communist Parties need to get out of their traditional political groove of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura States and move to wider political fields all over India. There is enough economic misery and poverty in States like Assam, Orissa, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Southern belt of Uttar Pradesh and even parts of Madhya Pradesh which provide fertile grounds for political expansion of Communist Parties. The strength of Communist Parties lies in their committed political cadres who can spearhead the widening of the Communist Parties political base in such areas.

The Communist Parties should adopt a cardinal principle that they would not go in for seat- sharing adjustments or support coalitions in which the Hindi belt casteist parties are involved. They have let down the Communist Parties in favor of the Congress Government to escape corruption persecutions.

The CPI (M) as the largest Communist Party has to take a lead in the direction of regaining the lost political space in Parliament. They have good educated, intelligent and articulate leaders like Prakash Karat, Brinda Karat and Sitaram Yechuri. All of them are relatively young and capable of sustained physical and mental election campaigns. What is required of them is to spend more time out of their offices in New Delhi and do political legwork in the areas mentioned above.

Needless to say that to achieve their political target of regaining lost political space would require a well-planned and co-coordinated political strategy to be sustained over a long period of time. Innovation would be required of them to catch the political imagination of a vast majority of Indians disgusted with lack of good governance by the ruling Congress Party and frustrated that the ‘Party with a Difference’ has failed to provide effective political opposition to checkmate the Congress Government’s political unilateralism.