The first phase of UF-Congress cooperation came to an abrupt end, even earlier than expected. Despite the cooling period allowed by the President neither could UF-Congress make it up among themselves nor could any other viable ruling arrangement take shape and thus within two years the nation has to face yet another general election.
Kudos to the UF for its firm refusal to submit to the Congress; blackmail but unfortunately this brave act may prove to be its last united act. Some sections were willing to toe the Congress line even earlier and now with the elections round the corner, are contemplating an open or tacit alliance with Congress under the pretext of special conditions in certain states. Similar considerations have led the major chunk of the JD in Orissa to embrace the BJP. Even Mr.Gujral — the UF prime minister — who refused to abide by the UF diktat on expelling RJD ministers from the cabinet — is seeking the blessings of Akali Dal to enter the Lok Sabha. Moreover, Laloo after his well-timed release is proving to be a major headache for UF in general and the JD in particular.
Despite a Common Minimum Programme and common appeal, UF appears a divided force without leadership and without orientation. As such, it is hardly likely to fire the popular imagination in the hustings as a cohesive political unit.
Though the Congress withdrew support on the Jain Commission Report, the significance of the report lies in nothing more than asserting the Congress dynasty and unifying the party around the same and thus providing a cause to the parting of ways with the UF.
As our Party’s Sixth Congress had noted, “...a coalition arrangement where both the major national parties the BJP and Congress which together have nearly two-thirds of parliamentary seats, are out of power, can only be an exception rather than a rule. Sooner or later either of the two will rally enough support behind them to run the government.”
Commenting on VP Singh’s formula of UF and Congress sharing both the ruling and the opposition space, the report said, “The basic fallacy of the argument is that it disregards the continuous process of conflicts and hence changes in the relative strengths of various parties which otherwise constitute the broad anti-BJP spectrum and it assumes a permanently subordinate role for the Congress at the Centre. Congress, still a major national party, cannot rest content with its present predicament. By making clear its agenda of opposing both the BJP and the CPI(M), it plans to work on the centrist camp to overturn the UF applecart.”
The report had remarked, “At present the UF government is running more by default than by design and Congress is waiting for the next opportunity to catapult itself into power.”
This Congress tactic, apparently similar to the tactic vis-a-vis Charan Singh government in 1979 and Chandrashekhar government in 1990, however can lead to a very different outcome. This is the phase of Congress decline and the Congress at the most can aim at a coalition with the centrist camp where it may play a leading role. To achieve this goal the Congress will resort to tactical games.
As the Party Congress report described, “It (the Congress) hopes to play up the contradictions in UF and seek allies in the next election. It does retain considerable maneuvering capability to create confusion and splits in the so-called third camp of the left, centrist and regional formations and stage a comeback in the form of a Congress-led coalition.”
In specific terms, the report had pointed out, “It (the Congress) has already developed a rapport with the RJD, is developing equations with Mulayam and is also working assiduously to bring the TMC and the DMK into line (after the Jain Commission report came out, it targeted the DMK to win back the TMC but the move hasnot succeeded yet — ed.) Having forced the UF to tone down its initial criticism of Congress on issues of secularism and corruption, it hopes to refurbish its image, win over alienated Muslims and emerge at the head of an anti-BJP coalition by the next elections.”
The entire exercise of interpreting the UF as a viable political alternative both to the BJP and the Congress, as a model coalition, as a secular and federal front and even the precursor of a People’s Democratic Front etc. was patently absurd. The alternative to Congress in 1996 elections, paradoxically, emerged as the UF-Congress cooperation because in the meantime the BJP had emerged as the single largest party inching closer to the seat of power. That political logic still holds true. The mid-term elections will prove to be a great leveler in reshaping UF-Congress relations. In the process both will undoubtably go through major internal shakeups in the form of desertions, splits and new social equations but that will only strengthen the basis of cooperation between the UF and the Congress.
The biggest gainer of the present turmoil is of course the BJP. It has been able to wash away the stigma of ‘untouchable’ attached to it and has been winning new friends and allies. In the process, however, tall claims of ‘value based politics’ have been thrown to the winds. In its bid of usurping the Congress legacy, it is also appropriating the notorious Congress culture of harbouring criminals and super-corrupts.
It now has emerged as the first preference of the corporate world and as the Varanasi Congress report had pointed out, “the ruling establishment is all set to welcome a BJP takeover by the next election, if not earlier.”
The BJP knows that this is the best chance offered to it and therefore it is moving at a breakneck speed to capture Delhi with the motto ‘now or never’. Confusing political scenario and the craze for stability coupled with the BJP capturing the bastion of UP and gaining upperhand in Bihar through fostering criminal gangs like Ranvir Sena, have all made the saffron threat very real and left and progressive forces can only ignore it at their peril. The Varanasi Congress had pointed out, “We do recognise the threat of the saffron power taking over India. The collapse of the UF may well prove to be the catalyst for such an eventuality. Although the BJP has its own problems and internal rifts (e.g. after the Vaghela episode, Uma Bharti threatening to split the party in Madhya Pradesh — ed.), and has limited reach as of now in many parts of the country, yet the threat is indeed real and we must not underestimate it. And if that happens, certain readjustments in policy may also have to be effected depending upon the concrete situation obtaining then.”
While dealing with the bid for a temporary alliance with the Samata Party during the 1995 Bihar assembly elections, the Party Congress report had pointed out, ‘In practical politics, tactical alliances aimed at weakening our rivals may often be quite temporary. If this is lost sight of, the Party’s capacity for political manoeuvring and flexibility in tactics in changing political situation will be seriously reduced.”
This brings us to the all-important question of tactics of the Left in general, and our Party in particular, in the coming elections.
First of all, the so-called slogan of stability is a hoax and meant only for the forces of status quo. Indira Gandhi’s stability only led to excessive centralisation and Emergency. Narasimha Rao’s stability proved to be the most corrupt regime India has ever had. And the BJP’s stability will only lead to a Ram Mandir, destroying the secular fabric of Indian society and provide a moral booster to the criminal gangs like Ranvir Sena. A loose and unstable kind of government based on UF-Congress kind of cooperation is best suited for the advance of the left movement in India. Here UF should be understood in broad generalised terms which include all kinds of centrist forces including those being cobbled up by Laloo Yadav in his so-called Secular Front.
Secondly, this necessarily demands an independent separate consolidation of the Left which may be in a better position to keep up pressure on such a government to extract as many concessions as possible for the people’s interests. Instead of hankering after participation in a bourgeois government and even seeking its premiership offered to an individual Mr.Jyoti Basu — whom the bourgeois world believes to be the right person in a wrong party — the Left should prepare itself for playing the role of democratic opposition at the Centre.
The leadership of the official Left, however, thinks otherwise. AB Bardhan is repeatedly insisting that Jyoti Basu would have made a better prime minister and under his premiership UF-Congress cooperation would not have stumbled. How, only god knows! Surjeet, the other day, while castigating the Congress for its pressure tactics, took credit for the fact that the Left, despite its serious reservations on many issues, did not pressurize the government on any of them. What a shameless claim! Be it Chidambaram’s ‘dream budget’, sitting over agrarian labourers’ bill as well as the women’s reservation bill, the Left didn’t feel it necessary to put pressure on the government. The CPI(M) leadership remained totally preoccupied with ‘number games’ and ‘placating the Congress’ — i.e., political manipulation at the top — instead of taking up issues for a democratic mass mobilisation of the people. Social Democrats indeed will have to answer for their role in providing an unhindered free space to the BJP. At this crucial political juncture, when each and every political action is significant, they did not even hesitate to field a common candidate and vote along with the BJP against Rabri Devi — in complete disregard to the decision in the 17-party front — in the Bihar Legislative Council elections.
The CPI(M) leadership is preparing the party to accept participation in any future government and Jyoti Basu is once again ready to move over to Delhi with his bag and baggage. The debate on the tactics of the Left must therefore be intensified and we may hope to garner support from a section of CPI(M) leadership.
In the coming elections, we shall have to gear up all our strength and undertake a massive independent all-India campaign reaching to the broad section of masses. We must contest in all our major areas of movement which symbolise the Party’s identity. Next, we should try to come to a political understanding and seat adjustments as far as practicable with our front partners in states like Bihar and Assam. And lastly, in vast numbers of constituencies where neither we nor our front partners are contesting, or where some front partners have entered into tacit alliances with the BJP, we shall support other political formations, except the Congress, against the BJP. And where a Congress candidate is the only viable candidate against the BJP, we should better keep our votes reserved.
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BJP Chargesheeted Anything for the sake of power. That has become BJP’s philosphy for the coming polls. A glance at its pre-poll postures. ‘Party with a difference’ is no different: Vajpayee says ‘We are middle-of-the-road party’ i.e. occupying the space of Congress. But isn’t it a Congressisation of the BJP, an almost complete adoption of Congressism? Crime and corruption have been found a ready acceptance in the party as its much-touted values of probity and clean government have been thrown to the winds. Amar Mani Tripathi, Raja ‘Bhaiyya’ (alias Raghuraj Pratap Singh) Hari Shankar Tewari, Markandey Chand and about 19 other criminals and mafia lords adorn Kalyan Singh’s jumbo ministry in UP. Vajpayee says ‘If they don’t maintain standards, they should go.’ Contentious issus have been skillfully skirted: Three essential items on the BJP agendas have been the repeal of Article 370, the promulgation of Uniform Civil Code and the construction of the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya. All are directed against the minority community and form the cornerstone of their communal politics. But these are bound to be points of conflict with some of their allies. So the three core items have been down-played for these polls. As one leader put it, ‘These are decisions that we cannot implement on our own in the near future. So they will have to wait till such time as we can do things unilaterally’. Article 370: The Party tactfully avoided a discussing on the Article in the recent Bhubhaneshwar meet Uniform Civil Code: To dilute its anti-minority offensive and keep a selective democratic pretension, Vajpayee says BJP is not for ‘substitution of personal laws of the minorities with that of the majority but the availability of equal rights for everyone.’ Ayodhya: Vajpayee says BJP will settle ‘the dispute through dialogue and the legal process’. Advani tells a Muslim youth conference: Let Muslims give up the claim to the Babri Masjid site and he would personally negotiate with the VHP leaders to find a settlement to the Kashi and Mathura disputes. While Vajpayee categorically says that Kashi and Mathura ‘are not on our agenda’. But the first thing Kalyan Singh did after becoming chief minister was to visit and offer pujas Ayodhya and reaffirm his party’s commitment to build the Ram Mandir. Shameless Acceptance of Criminals and the Corrupt: After striking an alliance with AIADMK, Advani justified the alliance with corruption-tainted Jayalalitha: ‘Innocent until proven guilty by court.’ By that logic then, why did the BJP have to raise a tirade against Laloo who too has yet not been proven guilty by court? Sanjay Singh, Amethi’s prince-with-a-past has the dubious distinction of being a perpetual party-hopper. His claim to fame has been his conviction in the murder of Syed Modi, ace badminton star. The corporate sector’s darling, the party went out of its way to defend the Tatas when links between one of its companies and the ULFA were revealed. Advani defended it by calling it a ‘nationalist’ company. Ranvir Sena, the killer army of the Bhumihar landords, receives the party’s patronage, a fact well known . |