Plus into minus (+ x – = -) is always equal to minus. In the same way adopting wrong means to achieve right––even a nobler––goal yields negative result. This is what the Left parties have done recently. They have botched up their whole strategy and are now finding themselves standing before a cul-de-sac.
How can the BJP and the Communists become strange bedfellows? In 1975 one of the constituents of the Left, the Communist Party of India (CPI), by supporting the Emergency committed the mistake and paid the price for it. Today the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left repeated the same blunder by aligning themselves with the BJP.
Having a different viewpoint on the nuclear deal is one thing, but going with the BJP, and that too on all the issues, is totally different. Not only that without even waiting for the full facts to come the Left went on to justify the money-bag drama enacted by the BJP MPs in Parliament on July 22, that is, an hour before the Prime Minister’s speech. It remained a mystery as to why the money-bag––if the story of the three BJP MPs is to be believed––handed over to them in the morning could be ‘tabled’ in Parliament six and a half hours later at 4:04 PM, just 56 minutes before the Prime Minister’s speech. Why was not it tabled at the very outset on Tuesday? What were the BJP MPs and leaders doing with the money all these six and more hours? Is it that they were least interested in the debate and more in disturbing the trust vote in the evening?
The Left failed to read this game-plan. The political immaturity of the CPI (M) got fully exposed when it expelled the 80-year Speaker, Somnath Chatterjee, from the party. Perhaps no other Left leader has displayed so much personal courage for a particular stand than him. His father was a leading light of the Hindu Mahasabha and yet he chose to oppose him and embarked on the Communist ideology only to see in the autumn of his life that all his close comrades have joined the same rank of Hindutva.
There was many thing good about Emergency, imposed on June 25, 1975. In the months trains used to run on time, corruption was checked, government employees were prompt in their duties yet for a democrat there was no scope to advocate its imposition.
There are enough arguments against the nuclear deal with the United States. The Left leaders put their position in Parliament and outside. They had the support of a large section of right-thinking people––cutting across the caste, community and creed lines. Yet the same set of people, even a large number of hard-core Left supporters, was taken aback by the stand to go along with the Hindutva brigade. Are people like Prakash Karat and A B Bardhan, the secretary generals of the CPI (M) and CPI respectively, not aware that be it the Congress or the BJP both have the same view on the nuclear issue? Were they not aware that Lal Krishna Advani opposed the confidence vote not because he was against the nuclear deal, but because his party could not earn this distinction! The Communists were well aware that a majority of the MPs––be it of the Congress, the BJP or other parties––support nuclear deal. The BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani made it amply clear in his Parliament speech by not opposing it. In fact he opposed the government for the opposition sake.
So instead of joining the BJP rank the Left parties should have just put up their points in Parliament and abstained from the voting. It needs to be mentioned that not all the battles––even of truth––are won. The Communists should leave the battlefield with grace rather than face the ignominy. If they were not aware of the result of the confidence motion beforehand then they should leave the politics and do something else.
From the very start all the objective observers and journalists––their rank is of course shrinking because most of them now work on the pay-roll of the Sangh Parivar––were of the view that the UPA is going to win the trust vote by a big margin. That exactly happened. The media was unnecessary spreading the canard of neck-and-neck fight for their own vested interest. The Left leaders fell into the trap of the BJP-Media Alliance and at the end of the day found eggs all over their faces. It needs to be mentioned that from the core of the heart most of the big media-houses were in favour of the deal, but their innate proclivity towards the BJP compelled them to oppose the UPA.
An overwhelming number of anti-nuclear deal campaigners, instead of patting the Left leaders on their back, are today furious over the ham-handed manner in which they allowed the initiative to be lost. The height of the Left stupidity was the statement of Brinda Karat immediately after the rupee-bag was unzipped in Parliament without the permission of the Speaker. Without waiting for the charge to be proved she went hammer and tong to allege that the Congress Party alone was responsible for this national shame. She failed to realize that this was what the BJP wanted. By this drama the desperate BJP wanted to seek full media attention, which was till then hovering around the Mayawati and Left parties. Brinda is not just a Rajya Sabha MP but also the wife of Prakash Karat and sister-in-law of NDTV’s Prannoy Roy (the wives of Prakash and Prannoy are sisters); yet she had a lot to learn in politics.
Only a few days before that drama CPI’s A B Bardhan talked about Rs 25 crore offer from the Congress. There is no denying the fact that money changes hands in Indian politics, yet why is it that he only charged the Congress? Why no mention was made about the BJP leaders doing the rounds in Delhi with lucrative offer? Who is not aware of the BJP’s 1999 no-confidence motion drama when its bigwigs worked over time to allure MPs of different parties with huge offers?
Who will answer this question: A few days before the trust vote the Union government named the Lucknow airport after the former Prime Minister Late Charan Singh. It was then rightly said that the UPA wants to woo his son, Ajit Singh, towards its side. But Ajit Singh and also Deve Gowda switched sides and went over to join the Mayawati-Left rank, even though his party had an alliance with the Samajwadi Party. What this means: Did the Left pay something to him or Deve Gowda?
The Left seems to have lost all the sense when it dragged the Muslims into the issue of nuclear deal. Its move to link the community backfired and even those Muslim MPs, who had reservations over the deal, were extremely cut up with them. The Reds left the Saffron Brigade far behind on this issue.
The defeated Communists and the NDA are now firing in the imagined target and in the process only losing whatever ammunition were left with them. The battle ahead seems to be much tougher for them.