It is a pity that a disciplined party with a cogent grassroots ideology, which had at one time carried out reforms, and taken up the cause of the working class with skill and elan, is now heading for an exit. At every level of the polity, the Bengal voters want to do away with the Left and want an alternative to it.
The Left leadership has failed itself and its cause. The failure to assimilate a changing political milieu; the hubris of decades of uninterrupted rule; refusal to imbibe maturity in political dialogues and dealings; a philosophy suffering distortions at the hands of lower-level cadres as a result of patronage from the top echelons and a subjugated state bureaucracy rendered impotent were all symptomatic of a moribund governance of both the party and the state.
The allies of the Left, in pursuit of political support from the Red brigade, are equally guilty of letting down West Bengal.
R Narayanan, Ghaziabad
