How does the Communist Party of India-Marxist [CPI(M)] explain its election debacle and where does the responsibility lie, Karan Thapar asks CPI(M) politburo member and Rajya Sabha MP Sitaram Yechury in a TV programme, ‘Devil’s Advocate’. Excerpts:
Prakash Karat has accepted that the election results are a major setback, but the truth is actually much worse than that. Can you deny that this is the worst electoral performance in your party’s 45-year history?
Not at all. I don’t deny it. This is the worst debacle we have had. Soon after we were formed in 1964, we won 19 seats in the first election we contested in 1967. Today we won 16.
So you have literally gone back below your starting point.
And this is a serious matter. The politburo has admitted it is a very big debacle and we have to understand why this happened. Let us for a moment pause over the statistics of your performance. You have gone from your best ever electoral performance to your worst ever in just five straight years. This time around you have lost 63 per cent of the seats you had, or to put it differently you have lost 68 per cent more seats than you have won. Those statistics are worrying and actually they are appalling.
Statistics are statistics and you can always manipulate them, but that is not the point. The fact is that you cannot escape from this reality that this has been a very big debacle for us. It has been the worst performance electorally.
Let us then come to why you did so badly. To begin with, can you accept that breaking with the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) was a mistake? The voters didn’t understand why you did it and, worst of all, it made CPI(M) look like a party which was promoting instability.
We have decided that all these issues - both national and state-level – will be introspected upon and a very serious, honest and self-critical review will be made by us.
Let me quote to you what your defeated MPs are saying. Prashant Pradhan, your defeated MP from Contai, says: “People have not taken kindly to the withdrawal of support from the UPA government. The poor and the farmers never understood why we wanted to topple the government.”
You see, these are points of views which have come across. As I said, all issues will be discussed by us and on all of them we will come to some honest, self-critical conclusion.
Let me quote to you Amitabh Nandi, a defeated MP from Dumdum. He says: “From day one of withdrawing support from UPA, our slogans, our activities have proved we are against stability.”
These are opinions that have come and, as I said, all these issues will be discussed thoroughly. And that process has already begun. By the middle of June, we will come to our conclusion.
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The second problem with breaking with the UPA was that you forced the Congress into the arms of the Trinamool Congress, thus creating a coalition that was able to attract the anti-Left votes in West Bengal at a time when you were yourself suffering from Nandigram, Singur and beginning to realise that the Muslim population could be disaffected. Rather than divide your opponents, you ended up uniting and strengthening them.
But remember that the Congress and the Trinamool always had a ground-level understanding even without an alliance. What happened this time was that the de facto converted itself into de jure.
Which was a disaster for you.
This had its impact, definitely. There is no doubt about it. We anticipated that this would have an impact on the marginal seats, but there are other reasons why this defeat has occurred in Bengal and those have to be seriously examined.
Absolutely. No one denies there are other reasons in Bengal. But given those other reasons, the worst tactic for you was to unite your opponents on a single platform. You should have divided them, not united them.
Like I said, we will review all of this.
But can you accept this was bad tactics?
Not just this, all other questions will be discussed and reviewed. All that I can say right now is that on any one of these issues, we have not come to any conclusive decision.
But you accept that given that you already had problems in Bengal, devising a strategy that unites your opponents was a pretty silly thing to do?
But it could well be that our opponents were going to unite anyway.
Maybe, but you prodded them into it. If you hadn’t broken with the Congress, it might not have gone with Trinamool and then you would have faced a divided Opposition not a united one.
In the last elections, remember, of the 61 Left MPs, 54 came to the Lok Sabha defeating Congress candidates. So going into elections with the Congress was never the issue.
But the problem was that this time, by breaking with the UPA, you pushed the Congress into the arms of the TC and thus created a platform of unity against you which otherwise would have been two divided parties.
That is the reason why I am saying that what was de facto has become de jure.
The second biggest mistake was in fact the Third Front. We all knew what it didn’t stand for - it was anti-Congress, anti-BJP - but no one actually knew what it stood for. As a result of which it lacked credibility and it projected negativity.
We in the politburo have come to the conclusion that the Third Front ...you understand how this Third Front emerged? It was state-level alliances in various states. Now this was brought together as a national alternative, which people obviously found had neither credibility nor viability. Both were lacking, (and) thus the result. That is what we have accepted.
Finish the sentence you half began before you interrupted yourself: “We in the politburo have come to a conclusion about the Third Front..” and then you stopped. What is that conclusion?
That it was neither viable nor credible.
Would you therefore say that it was a mistake?
The way it was projected was a mistake. I’ll tell you why. The CPI(M) always had this opinion, which we still continue to have, that India requires a third political alternative. This third political alternative will have to bring about a shift in the policy trajectory in the country. But that cannot be a cut-and-paste job on the eve of elections.
Let me quote to you Hannan Mollah, one of your defeated MPs. This is what he told several papers: “We have been severely punished. Did we lose touch with ground reality?” What is your answer to that question?
That is precisely what we are examining. That is the answer we will give in our Central Committee when we meet in June.
What is your hunch? You are a political man, no doubt a definitive answer will come after the analysis, but what is your instinct?
Obviously, we have lost touch otherwise this sort of result would not have come. But to what degree, why we lost touch, what were the inadequacies, that is something we are seriously examining.
But you agree that you lost touch?
Of course, the results show that.
After facing a similar disastrous electoral performance, L K Advani offered his resignation to the BJP as Leader of Opposition. Why in similar circumstances in the CPI(M) has Prakash Karat not found fit to make a similar gesture?
Leader of Opposition is a position in Parliament and that Parliament has ceased to be — the 14th Lok Sabha. So whether he resigns or not, that Parliament has finished.
We are talking about the need for candidness, for transparency and for winning back the people you have lost. Surely therefore Prakash Karat must make the gesture of accepting responsibility as General Secretary.
The point again here is that it will have to be a collective assessment that we will make of these results, of why these results have resulted in this sort of manner. And remember, resignation also can be escape from responsibilities.
You said a very interesting thing. A collective assessment will be made.
Yes.
Now your Central Committee is due to meet in June. At that meeting, what are the chances that Prakash Karat will either step down voluntarily or be stripped of his responsibilities.
Again, let me tell you the Central Committee is going to discuss the reasons for our debacle.
And they are going into the question of leadership?
Leadership of course. In that process. But it will not be on the basis of who is going to resign or not — that is not the issue. The issue is what are the mistakes, why were they committed and how can they be corrected.
But can you rule out the possibility of Prakash Karat accepting responsibility at that stage and resigning?
The Central Committee, as I said, will comprehensively review. Beyond that, I cannot go today.
Let me put this to you. There is no doubt that the two issues on which you ended up losing seats were the break with the UPA and creation of a less than credible Third Front. Of both those, Prakash Karat was the central architect. Is it not therefore the case that, as the Press is saying, he has the greatest measure of direct responsibility for this defeat?
Prakash Karat is the General Secretary of the CPI(M). These were the decisions of the CPI(M) and he as General Secretary will articulate these decisions, naturally.
In most organisations, when things go wrong the man at the top takes the responsibility.
But I think that is also one way of escaping responsibility.
Are you going to hold him to the job to punish him rather than let him go?
It is not a question of an individual. As I said, we will collectively assess what are our mistakes.
And therefore if you are going to collectively assess, his future depends on the outcome and decisions of the central committee.
Well, the future of the party depends on it.