With the longest-running chief minister finally throwing his hat into the ring
for the heavyweight bout over premiership, the twelfth round of ballot-boxing
is getting curiouser and curiouser. The gala show already had its attractions:
the leader of the ‘secular’ UF rubbing shoulders with the Akali-BJP
combine at Jalandhar, with the communist Chanakya’ conveniently looking
the other way; the BJP’s “mask and loudspeaker” blurting out
the most liberal phrases, only to be quickly overtaken by his arch-communal
friend from Mumbai who now opts for a national monument and not a Mandir at
Ayodhya; yesteryears’ vocal opponents of communalism scampering to join
the saffron bandwagon ... the list could go on and on. One wonders how easily
people change colour and conscience in the lure of power!
Particularly curious is to watch the well-timed, professionally packaged Sonia
blitz, with the Octogenarian chacha kowtowing before her and the UF (including
the left) bigwisg playing defensive to Sonia’s calculated aggressiveness
even on Bofors. Now this is an issue where her family and party are clearly
at an disadvantage, yet the UF’s hesitation stems from a concern not to
antagonise the party which it expects to be its principal prop in regaining
power, if not its coalition partner. But this only helps the BJP come out as
the foremost crusader against corruption and the Congress. Meanwhile, overt
and covert infighting grows apace: within the BJP and between the BJP and its
regional allies like Samata and Mamata, among the UF constituents, between the
Sonia and Kesri camps, within Laloo’s Jan Morcha — where not!
Even as the sero-comic soap opera rolls on, real life as depicted by the president
of India witnesses rising “caste conflicts and economic violence”,
coupled with “a counter-revolution [against] ...land reforms”. Correspondingly,
the anti-poor political bias of the whole political— including electoral—process
continues to escalate and parties like ours, which seriously fight for the people’s
cause, are systematically discriminated against and trounced up. As the following
pages would show, all the arms of the state are allied with all the parties
in power in this political class war against us. And yet, the marginalised masses
and their representatives are determined to assert themselves, perhaps by refusing
a clear mandate to any of the three principal formations of the ruing class.
This may well lead to a new instability and a fresh spurt in the game of making
and breaking opportunist alliances, with MPs selling at record prices.
The concluding episodes of the mega-budget soap opera will thus be played out only in March. But will the Left just join the bourgeois politicians in hankering for the loaves and fishes of office? Or should they, while doing everything they can to keep the BJP and the Congress out of power, sit in the opposition and intensify struggle against the corrupt, communalised, anti-people establishment both within and without Parliament? As we wait for the final results, the left ranks must come out with a clear verdict that they do not want their leaders to get co-opted as decorative show-pieces in bourgeois cabinets.
