NEW DELHI : When we review our work on building the independent strength of the party in the last four years, we cannot say we have made adequate political, ideological and organisational efforts for the same,” read the Political-Organisational Report introduced during the CPM Party Congress in Kannur in April 2022. The four-year reference was in the context of the party’s dismal show in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Staring at an existential crisis, the two main Left parties — CPM and CPI — have been reduced to single digits in Parliament. The CPM could only secure three seats and its vote share dipped to 1.75 per cent in the last parliamentary polls. Not just the CPM, the performance of all Left parties was at the lowest ebb in their electoral history since Independence. The CPI won just two seats while its vote share plummeted to 0.58 per cent. The other Left Front constituent — the RSP bagged one seat with just 0.12 per cent vote share.
In 2019, the CPM won one seat (Alappuzha) in Kerala and two (Coimbatore and Madurai) in Tamil Nadu. The CPI won two seats — Tiruppur and Nagapattinam — in Tamil Nadu. The Left parties couldn’t open their account in West Bengal.
Kerala, Tripura and West Bengal were considered traditional Left bastions. The Left Front governed West Bengal for 34 years from 1977 to 2011 and Tripura for 25 years from 1993 to 2018. The Left has also led governments in Kerala since 1957. Besides running governments in three states, the Left had also played a key role in the Third Front from 1996-98 and in the Congress-led UPA in 2004.
Fighting for its pride
The CPM has so far announced candidates for 44 Lok Sabha seats, including 17 in West Bengal. It is contesting one seat each in Andaman and Nicobar, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Punjab, Rajasthan, Telangana and Tripura. In Tamil Nadu, the party has got two seats — Madurai and Dindigul — as part of the INDIA bloc alliance.
As part of the INDIA bloc alliance in Bihar, the CPI(M-L) has been allocated three seats and the CPI and CPM have got one seat each. After seat-sharing talks failed in Jharkhand, the CPI decided to go it alone in eight seats in the state. As part of the Left Democratic Front in Kerala, the CPI got four seats.
Experts and political commentators term the steep decline in electoral performance of the Left “not a good sign” in the current political scenario. They say the Left has always helped in shaping public policies aimed at people’s welfare. They, however, add that the Left should be held responsible for their diminishing clout.
Ajay Gudavarthy, who teaches at Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), cited a series of “misadventures” and decisions for the “fall” of the Left.
“After pulling out two-to-three nuclear deals, and prior to that, the refusal to make Jyoti Basu the prime ministerial candidate during the coalition era, coupled with a series of misadventures and decisions, did not augur well in the public imagination of the Left. After the rise of Hindutva politics, the Left suddenly became an alien force. People are finding it difficult to identify with their language,” Gudavarthy said.
Another reason, he said is that the Left takes decades to bring about changes. The lethargic and organisational disciplinary structure is not working in their favour in the current context.
“They take eons to change, and are bad in catching up. They are not able to cope up with the cultural agenda of the right. There are economic reasons too. Liberalism growing into informalisation (the increase in proportion of workforce in informal sector) has made mobilisation around class politics a very difficult agenda to set. The Left can mobilise trade unions, but when it comes to informal labour, which is migrant and moves from one place to another, the Left is at a loss. They have not developed a strategy or alternative methods to address this. Their failure in mobilising the informal sectors caused the decline in their electoral presence,” said Gudavarthy.
Rise & fall of the Left
The span of about 40 years — starting from the fourth Lok Sabha elections in 1967 to the fall of the NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2004 — could arguably be the golden age of Left dominance in India. On an average, they had jointly been capturing 50 seats in every election. For the CPM, its best performance came in 2004, when it had won 43 seats, a record since its formation in 1964 after breaking away from the CPI.
The CPI’s peak was recorded in the third Lok Sabha in 1962. Following the split, in the ensuing election in 1967, the CPM had won 19 and CPI 29.
In an interview with this newspaper earlier, CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury said that the dwindling strength of the party in Parliament was the result of ganging up of forces —from right to left—against the party. However, he had admitted that there were also some lapses on its part.
“Our electoral support has significantly declined. But at the same time, our ability to set an agenda before the country has actually strengthened... The only issue on which PM Narendra Modi had to back off was the farm stir against the three farm bills,” he had said.
At its peak, CPM’s vote share had crossed the 6 per cent mark and the CPI’s above 5 per cent. All India Forward Bloc (AIBC) and the RSP largely retained their numbers as they continued registering victory on two-five seats individually.
Professor Biswajit Das of Centre for Culture Media, Jamia Millia Islamia, said that the conventional idea of Left politics in the country has completely declined, in a sense that the kind of ideological baggage the Left had has been appropriated by mainstream parties.
“The Left has literally exhausted its alternatives. In order to survive, they have to create an alternative space, and also in terms of the jargons or even the language they will use. In fact, their language has been appropriated by the mainstream. There is nothing new they have to offer,” he said.
He feared that they would gradually diminish because of the ways the larger counter movements are taking place in this country. “The Left was not able to accommodate, or adjust itself to, the culture-specific scenarios,” Das added.
Significance of Left
On the importance of Left, Gudavarthy said that they are the only parties in mainstream politics that offer a critique of neoliberal agenda.
“Much of the Left policies are also by default moving within the neoliberal paradigm, but at least they are offering an ideological critique. They keep the welfare agenda first. If you look at 2004-2014 during UPA, the party played a very important role. The CPM pulled off a wide-range of welfare policies that Congress implemented,” he added.
CPI general secretary Bhalchandra Kango agrees. “After Independence, all movements —cultural, students, farmers and workers — were dominated by the Left for long. “In 2004, 60 MPs of the Left influenced the UPA-I and compelled them to have Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and Right to Information Act. And measures like loan waiver scheme and land to tribals were achievements of the Left,” said Kango.
Gudavarthy said that a lot of intellectual public presence emerges from the Left parties.
The golden era
The span of about 40 years — from the 4th LS polls in 1967 to the fall of NDA government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2004 — could arguably be the golden age of Left dominance in India. On an average, they had jointly been capturing 50 seats in every election. CPM’s best performance came in 2004, when it had won 43 seats.
*Forward Bloc (Marxist) Communist parties in India
CPI is the oldest. It is a state party with presence mainly in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Manipur Founded in 1964, CPM is the largest communist party in terms of electoral performance
Founded in 1974, CPI(M-L) Liberation is the third largest party with state party status in Bihar
RSP has state party status in Kerala