West Bengal: Left losing its plot amid intense Mamata-bashing by CPM

Most surveys, including the ones done by The Federal, have predicted a rout for the Left that ruled the state for 34 long years on the trot until 2011.

Revival mirage?

The predictions mean the faint sign of revival that was seen in the rural and civic body elections held after the 2021 Assembly polls could be a flash in the pan. Together with the Congress and ISF, the Left Front-led Sanyukta Morcha got a vote share of 23.02 percent in the panchayat elections last year. It was about a 12 percent rise from what the combination secured in the 2021 Assembly elections. The vote share was also higher than the 22.92 percent votes the BJP had polled in rural Bengal.

The upswing was noticed since the Kolkata civic body elections in December 2021, where the Left Front, for the first time since 2019, got more votes (11.87 percent) than the BJP (9.19 percent). The trend continued in subsequent civic body elections held in 2022, with the Left parties with a vote share of 16.75 percent, finishing ahead of the BJP’s 14.5 percent.

Dipping support

Pollsters have predicted that the vote shares of the Left and its allies will once again plummet below double digit, indicating that the electoral contest in Bengal will again be bipolar between the TMC and the BJP.

Even political pundits endorse the assessment. That the Left is losing its plot is evident from its cursory response to recent issues that have created uproar in the state, including Sandeshkhali.

Aggressive BJP

The opposition BJP is pulling out all stops to turn the women-led uprising in Sandeshkhali, an island in the Sunderbans areas of the state, into another Nandigram-Singur-like mass movement that had propelled Mamata Banerjee’s TMC to power, ending over three decades of Marxist rule. Sandeshkhali is on the boil over charges of land grab and sexual assaults of women against local TMC leaders and their supporters.

The TMC, on the other hand, is generating heat on the BJP by projecting it as being hostile to Bengal. The freeze on release of funds for Central government schemes in the state and deactivation of Aadhaar cards of several citizens that led to the revival of no-NRC demand are the two prime issues weaponised by the TMC to assail the saffron brigade.

Left silence

These wars of attrition have set the tone for the ensuing parliamentary elections in the state. But the Left Front is still pussyfooting around these issues. On the two issues against the BJP, the Left is maintaining a stoic silence despite the fund-freeze and Aadhaar deactivation directly impacting proletarians.

On Sandeshkhali it completely lost the initiative as on the ground the distinctive line that separates the Marxists from the Hindutva brigade got blurred because of the passive approach of the state Left leaders towards the BJP.

What’s wrong

A senior Left leader, Debabrata Biswas, the general secretary of the All India Forward Bloc, admitted that the Left Front has failed to capitalise on the Sandeshkhali uprising, which he felt can snowball into a Nandigram-like movement.

He blamed the failure on weakening of organisational bases of the two Left constituents – the CPI (M) and the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) – that were active in the area. This, he said, is largely because of the disconnect between the top leaders with the grassroot functionaries.

Marxists’ fallacy

Political scientists and even Left leaders, in private, said influence of the Left has waned in the state because of its failure to defy the TMC-BJP binary. The CPI(M), the driving force behind the front, is primarily responsible for it, they said.

“The CPI (M)’s blind opposition to the TMC has reached a point where it cannot be distinguished from the BJP,” said Ranabir Samaddar, the Director of the Calcutta Research Group (CRG).

The party is so wary to be seen aligning with the TMC that it did not even join an issue with the BJP over the recent Aadhar deactivation that has primarily affected the migrant Matua community, professor Samaddar pointed out.

Defeat still bites

The antagonism has come to such a pass that the CPI (M) started even opposing the welfare-centric model of the TMC, alienating it from the masses, he added.

The rancour stems from the CPI (M)’s inability to come to terms with the defeat it suffered at the hands of the TMC over a decade ago, said political commentator Amal Sarkar, who has written extensively on Left politics.

Losing to BJP

The CPI(M) leadership considers the TMC as its main enemy in Bengal and this has given rise to a perception among the party rank and file that their primary objective is to ensure the latter’s ouster from the power and if their party cannot do it, let the BJP do the needful, he added.

This explains the gravitating of the Left supporters towards the BJP. Being in power at the Centre, the party is naturally seen to be in a better position to challenge the TMC.