In its first internal assessment of the debacle in the Lok Sabha elections, the top Left leadership have realised a serious crisis in the organisation — party workers have lost touch with people at the grassroots level.
Some Left leaders have also admitted that their “timing of withdrawing support to the Congress” was wrong. The Left parties had withdrawn support to the Congress-led UPA in July 2008 over the Indo-US nuclear deal.
However, the Left suffered more humiliation from its Third Front partners. Even as the Left Front today desperately said it would “continue cooperation with non-BJP, non-Congress parties”, these parties have already given a cold shoulder to the Left. Despite the Left’s desire to convene a meeting of the Third Front that managed to get 67 seats, H D Deve Gowda’s JD(S) and Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK found it futile and hence rejected the idea.
CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat admitted this serious lapse when the four Left parties - CPI(M), CPI, Forward Bloc and RSP - sat today to analyse their humiliating electoral defeat. The strength of Left parties has come down to just 24 seats from its record number of 61 MPs in the 14th LS.
RSP general secretary T J Chandrachoodan and Forward Bloc secretary G Deverajan today described certain incidents in Kerala on how the parties had lost touch with ground realities, which Karat also agreed to. But many Left leaders found this introspection “useless” and argued, “why did it take so long to understand that the parties are losing mass contact?”
The central leaders of the Left were shocked because even after the last phase of the polling, the state units of Left parties said they would win “at least 10 seats in Kerala” and “28 to 30 seats in West Bengal”.
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The Left had to bite the dust in Kerala with just four seats and for the first time in decades, the Left parties in West Bengal got only 15 seats while its opponents snatched the larger share. So the question doing the rounds at the Left quarters is why did it fail to realise this situation even after the last phase of polling? Kerala, incidentally, had polled on April 16, the first day of the five-phase exercise.
But the CPI(M) leadership might have to face tough questions and wrath of its partners as many in the smaller parties feel that “high-handed attitude” of the Left Front government in Bengal and “CPI(M)’s infighting in Kerala” had taken a toll on the Left’s prospects. As the CPI(M) got four seats while the CPI drew a blank in Kerala, a section of the CPI also suspects foul play by the local CPI(M) cadres. “We have many reasons to believe that the Left was not a united force in the constituencies where the CPI put up its candidates. Our central leaders may take up this matter,” said a senior CPI member.
Each of the four Left parties have decided to review the poll outcome individually and then meet for a collective assessment. They claimed to continue cooperation with non-BJP, non-Congress parties even as the Third Front parties have started looking for a possible tie-up with either the BJP or the Congress. And even as the Congress made a record by winning 206 Lok Sabha seats, CPI general secretary A B Bardhan dismissed the popular support for Congress policies saying, “votes don’t make all wrong things right!”
That trouble is brewing in the Left camp is evident form another fact: there was a 15-minute-long argument between different Left leaders to decide if a press release be issued or not after the meeting!