NakePoll Alliance - Display of Opportunistic Vote Politics

The tenure of the 13th Lok Sabha has been curtailed by eight months not because of any compelling situation or on genuine grounds, but election exigencies of the BJP-led NDA. Encouraged by the ‘‘triumph’’ in the assembly elections of the three states in the Hindi heartland, the BJP top brass, desperate to secure another term in central government, did not lose any time to dissolve Parliament ahead of schedule and advance the poll. Obviously, this early dissolution of Parliament and holding of elections, not in the interest of the people but prompted by the narrow sectarian politics of the ruling bourgeois political outfit, is to be endured by the people. And once the elections have been round the corner, usual pre-poll gimmickery and chicanery, hectic parleys to forge opportunistic poll alliances, episodic nit-picking and mudslinging, floor crossing by the self-seeking bourgeois politicians have taken the centre stage of the political scene in the country.
The murky scene of opportunistic alliances
The Congress and its associates blame the BJP for failing to govern and halting the pace of progress. They also charge the BJP of overplaying the communal card and putting the disputed ‘Mandir’ issue ahead of development. The BJP juggles with statistics and figures to project a contrived spectacle of progress, spends hundreds of crore of rupees from the public exchequer to advertise its ‘‘achievements’’. The BJP leaders create a smokescreen of so-called development to hide its rabid Hindutva agenda and worst communal politics the latest form of which the people witnessed during the last assembly elections. When the DMK walks out of the NDA for its own compulsions, the BJP rediscovers overnight a faithful ally in Jayalalitha once branded as the queen of corruption by none else than Vajpayee himself ! Imme-diately, Harkishen Singh Surjeet, the CPI(M) general secretary, lands at the DMK headquarters as emissary of Sonia Gandhi to persuade its leaders to join the Congress camp. Sonia is quick to absolve the DMK of all her previous charges of plotting the murder of late Rajiv Gandhi lest there is any impediment to the intended tie-up. Mulayam, who till the other day was inclined towards the Congress and hurled so many invectives against Vajpayee to reinforce his ‘‘secular’’ character, assumes power with the tacit support of the BJP. While he keeps the door ajar for the BJP, he also keeps open the channel of dialogue with the Congress so as to have both the options in hand. Ms. Mayawati, who enjoyed chief ministership with the patronage of ‘‘Manuwadi’’ BJP is now being wooed by the Congress towards it. It may be recalled that Mayawati fell out with the BJP after the latter declined to share the responsibility of the Taj corridor scandal that rocked her boat. She resolved to teach the BJP a lesson. But after a brief exploration of her poll prospects in company of the Congress and finding the latter still not averse to strike a deal with her bete noir Mulayam, she now turns the gun back towards Sonia. Kalyan Singh, the infamous BJP chief minister who dissociated from his parent party to tie knot with Mulayam and threatened to expose Vajpayee-Advani in the Babari Masjid demolition case, returns to the BJP fold to carry forward the ‘‘Mandir’’ agenda. Sharad Powar, who broke away from the Congress over Sonia’s foreign origin question, now breaks his own breakaway group to side with the Congress. The BJP blames the Congress in the Bofors scam. The Congress retaliates by pointing out the BJP’s involvement in the Tehelka, coffin and other shady defence deals. The BJP overtly uses its Hindutva plank to woo majority votes on communal line. The Congress foments “soft” Hindutva sentiment to give blushes to the BJP. Blurring of lines between crime and vote oriented bourgeois politics happened aeons ago. Judeo-Jogi-Rudy-Telgi-Raja Bhaiyya-Shahabuddin and the likes crowd the BJP, the Congress as well as the organizations of Mulayam, Laloo and others. D.P.Jadav, accused in 30 criminal cases, is welcomed in the BJP fold with Sushma Swaraj, its firebrand leader, justifying the inclusion by saying, ‘‘the BJP is an ocean and all kinds of rivers flow in it, but these do not affect the ocean’s cleanliness.’’ However, in the face of severe public condemnation and in view of this naked exposure before the election, the BJP leaders reverse the decision to induct Jadav, for the time being.

CPI(M)-CPI traverse the same way
While this is the position of the known bourgeois political parties and their leaders whom the subservient media project as messiahs to the people, let us shift the focus on the ‘Lefts’ like the CPI(M), CPI and their obedient allies who pose to be different. Are they taking any initiative to make the people aware of this murky game and release an alternative current of left democratic movement to stem the rot ? Not at all. On the contrary, they are now hobnobbing with the Congress to defeat the BJP in the elections. According to them, they as secular political parties are collaborating with the Congress, another secular outfit, to combat the fundamentalism-communalism of the BJP. What could be a better example of travesty of truth! Whence has the Congress become secular ? The Congress all along pandered to communal politics, engineered communal riots at various parts of the country, even enjoyed RSS backing to win an election. It was late Rajiv Gandhi who broke open the locks of Babari Masjid which allowed the BJP to take up the Hindu communal card and play it with a vengeance triggering the chain of events that led to exacerbated communal tension, and eventually to fratricidal bloodbath and worst pogroms in Mumbai and Gujarat. In fact, no bourgeois political party can remain secular today. Yet the same Congress is percived to be a ‘‘secular’’ ally by the CPI(M) and the CPI. Mr. H. S. Surjeet, the CPI(M) general secretary says, ‘‘At this hour, one cannot wish away the Congress. Because Congress is the largest party in the country. Without its support it is not possible for the secular front to dislodge the BJP.’’ (Ganashakti, the CPI(M) Bengali organ dated 4.1.04) In fact, both Surjeet and Jyoti Basu have been openly advocating alliance with the Congress in camera, in press statements and interviews and in public talks. The CPI leaders too, have never kept secret their desperateness to join hands with the Congress to stall spread of communal venom by beating the BJP in the ballot war. Time and again, we have shown in the pages of Proletarian Era that the menace of communalism-fundamentalism can be counteracted only by releasing an ideological struggle against it propelled by massive democratic movements. Even the election fight against communal forces has to be backed by powerful, conscious democratic mass movements. But the CPI(M)-CPI, too eager to make electoral gains anyhow, are least bothered about the genuine interest of the people and hence the right course of action.

The double standard of the CPI(M) leadership
Apart from their preposterous policy of aligning with the Congress, what is shocking is the manner in which they are treating the people of the country. When the CPI(M) leaders find that it is proving increasingly difficult to sell the secular credential of the Congress to the people, who rightly possess a strong anti-congress feeling in the backdrop of their harrowing experience of the Congress misrule for decades, they surreptitiously change the refrain to feign as if they are equally opposed to both the Congress and the BJP. And to dupe the people further, they begin to say that ‘‘they would oppose the harmful economic policies of the Congress while launching independent propaganda’’ (Ganashakti, 01.02.04). “Nowhere would the party enter into any alliance or join any front with the Congress,’’ said the CPI(M) central committee after its recent Hyderabad meet (Ibid). But at the same time, one saw the CPI(M) general secretary in the role of Sonia’s emissary in working out deals with the ‘like-minded parties’. One could not but notice that the CPI(M) central committee, while declining to have any pact with the Congress, goes on record that its ‘‘main aim is to keep a vigil so that a secular government is formed at the Centre once the Fourteenth Lok Sabha is constituted.’’ (Ibid) Elaborating further, Sitaram Yechury, the CPI(M) polit buro member, in his recent address to the students in Guwahati, ‘‘ underlined the need for avoiding a split in the votes of the secular platform — one led by the secular parties and the other by the Congress so that the BJP-led communal forces can be resisted from coming back to power.’’ (People’s Democracy, 9-15 February, 04). Could there by anything more revealing than this to uncover what lurks behind the so-called anti-Congress posture or sham anti-Congressism ? In fact, the Con-gress-DMK-CPI(M)-CPI alliance is through in Tamil Nadu. Secular combination of the Congress-CPI(M)-CPI and separatist Telengana Rashtriya Samithy in Andhra Pradesh is in the final stage of formation. Talks are on in other states as well to work out combinations between the Congress and the CPI(M)-CPI. One recalls that the CPI(M), CPI fought the last assembly elections in Gujarat, J & K, Rajasthan and other places in alliance with the Congress. The CPI(M) candidate in Bhavnagare in Gujarat, was found campaigning with the photograph of Sonia ! One could judge for oneself how the CPI(M)-CPI leaders take the people for granted and think whatever they feed, would be swallowed. Is it anything but political opportunism and double standard per excellence and an affront to the people ?

Heightened duplicity of the CPI(M) leadership
But this is not the end of the story of heightened duplicity and treating the people with contempt. The CPI(M) leaders have informed that there would be no alliance with the Congress in the states of West Bengal, Tripura and Kerala where in the state level parliamentary duel, the two parties contend each other. In one or two more states, such alliance might not work out because of the sectarian and other petty considerations of either of them. Is it also not an instance of worst double dealing ? How could the CPI(M) have one policy of colluding with the Congress at national level to prevent split of the anti-BJP votes and simultaneously decide to contest in a few states soliciting anti-Congress votes ? Moreover, if the CPI(M) candidates win from such states securing anti-Congress votes, what moral right and propriety, even in the bourgeois sense, would they have to extend support to the Congress in the next Parliament to keep the BJP at bay ? Is this how the CPI(M) leader-ship respects people’s verdict ? What then remains of even rudimentary ethics and moral conduct ? What is then the difference between the known bourgeois parties and these leftists as both practice with equal impunity crass opportunism and play with the mandate of the people for pelf and power ?
Perhaps the CPI(M), CPI leaders think that they would get away with all such opportunist and deceptive acts. But we know from history that whoever has tried to betray the cause of the people, discharge the role of servitor and protector to the exploiting class had to face the consequence ultimately. History never forgives such treacherous acts. We fervently appeal to the honest rank and file of the CPI(M) and the CPI to seriously ponder over this and decide if they would allow them-selves to be dragged along the rotten anti-people bourgeois vote politics.