CPM lead Left Front: Losing Elections, Gracefully – Lessons Not Learned, Yet!

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In the recently concluded elections, CPM lead Left front been totally trounced by Ms. Mamata Banerjee lead TMC in West Bengal, while it lost to Congress lead U.D.F. in Kerala.

In West Bengal, during the last 34 years of their strangle hold of the State, they have converted the total Secular Governmental Machinery into an ineffective one by introducing the most undemocratic norm of making it mandatory to have ‘cadre card’ of CPM or its allies in LDF, for obtaining civic services like power connection, gas connection, water connection or building permits, etc. and even to file an F.I.R. in any police station one has to be a cadre of the Left Front.

In its over enthusiasm in implementing their belated economic development plan of the state, they invited several corporates to set up heavy industries and acquired forcefully the agricultural land for such projects in Singur and Nandigaram and quelled the farmers agitation for fair market price for their lands so acquired, with brutal police force.  In this act they outsmarted the A.P. government in supporting several mega ports, power projects and SEZs – by forcefully acquiring lands from farmers and fisher folk, without paying the fair market price and suppressing all forms of protests with police oppression as well U.P. government’s forceful land acquisition without paying fair market price to the farmers, for Jaypee group's Yamuna Express Highway project and also the brutal oppression of farmers agitation.

According to the Report of Mr. Partho Sarathi Ray dated, April 24, 2011 (http://sanhati.com/excerpted/3491/) “The total number of landless peasants has more than doubled from 33 lakhs in 1971 to 78 lakhs in 2001! According to the West Bengal human development report, 4 lakh of the peasants who had received titles (pattas) for redistributed land had lost their land by 2004. What has been rampant in the countryside of Bengal over the last twenty years and more, is the phenomenon of reversal of land reforms, as poor peasants unable to bear the high input costs for agriculture and facing un-remunerative returns have increasingly sold off their land to rural big and middle peasants, who have made the greatest gains during the Left Front rule. And this rich peasantry, which has grown fat during Left Front rule, forms the main support base of the CPI (M) in the rural areas and has a stranglehold over the rural economy. In village after village, it is this class which owns the shops for seeds and fertilizers, pump sets for irrigation, cold storages, PDS shops, in short everything that is needed for making a living out of agriculture; this has gone completely out of the reach of the poor peasantry.”

Though the style of their administration has not been that cruel in Kerala, due its unique community based political polarization, high levels of literacy & development and mainly their sharing power with the UDF on a sea-saw basis, the rule there had been more democratic.  However, the national leadership of CPM exonerating its corruption and immoral conduct charges against their leaders, while all the while getting shocked, in pubic, of the corruption scandals of Congress has not gone well down with the voter base in both Kerala and West Bengal.

With the above kind of style of functioning, CPM had better introspect and come out with a better democratic approach toward people’s administration.