Why Left still relevant at the national level

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Sridip Bhattacharya, CPI(M) central committee member
Sridip Bhattacharya, CPI(M) central committee member

This election was fought on agendas originally set by the Left Front.

By Abhishek Sengupta (Reporting from Kolkata)

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Published: Wed 22 May 2019, 11:00 PM

Last updated: Thu 23 May 2019, 9:34 AM

From just four rooms in a decrepit state-run school, in which the Communist Party of India (Marxist) set up base in the sixties in Kolkata, the state headquarters today has grown into a palatial four-storey building that sprawls 24,000 square feet.
A fleet of SUVs in the driveway and a troop of vigilant security personnel in starched uniforms greet visitors at the entrance but with just nine seats won in the 2014 election, the CPI (M) is fighting its own battle to keep its legacy alive. A legacy that spawned national-level leaders like EMS Namboodiripad, Kerala's first chief minister, Harkishan Singh Surjeet and Jyoti Basu, West Bengal's longest-serving CM, amongst others.

Photo by Abhishek Sengupta
Most exit polls in India, since the grand general election concluded on May 19, may have predicted a mammoth win for Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and today's election results may reaffirm a return to power for the second straight time for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
Yet one of India's oldest political entities, once a mainstream party that formed the very backbone of India's Left Front but a fringe force today, maintains the NDA can't overlook the Left's fundamental policies and ideologies over the course of next five years, if they have to form a stable, secure and a more wanted government at the Centre.
During a freewheeling chat at his office inside the Muzaffar Ahmed Bhavan on 31, Alimuddin Street - the CPI(M)'s iconic nerve centre in Kolkata - Sridip Bhattacharya, member of the CPI(M) central committee and West Bengal state secretariat, tells Khaleej Times exactly why his party will be even more relevant in India's grand scheme of things this time around.
"This election was fought on agendas originally set by the Left Front. That should tell you the pertinence of India's left front," Bhattacharya says, reminding that CPI(M) is a revolutionary party of the Indian working class with a focus on the Indian peasantry that forms a significant chunk (over 273 million or over 22 per cent) of India's population. "They (farmers) are oppressed. They don't get the returns they expect," he adds while pointing to rates of farmer deaths and suicides despite Narendra Modi's election promises in 2014.
"We are the only party that's continually raised issues of farmers' distress at the national level and rallied for their rights and we will continue this fight irrespective of who comes at the Centre," he says while adding that PM Modi has failed to address farmers' distress in his first five years even as it has been a talking point in both Congress' and BJP's manifesto this election.
According to reports, the farmers suicide rate in India ranged between 1.4 and 1.8 per 100,000 total population, over a 10-year period through 2005. However, figures in 2017 and 2018 showed an average of more than 10 suicides daily. There are accusations of states manipulating the data on farmer suicides with chances that real figures could be even higher.
"That's just one," Bhattacharya adds. "As a party, we have continually fought against crony capitalism that's destroying the country," he says, talking about what he calls "the unholy nexus" between big industrialists like "Adanis and Ambanis" and political parties. "Rafale deal was a manifestation of this crony capitalism as were the recent episodes of bank frauds," he adds while pointing to The Punjab National Bank fraud case involving fraudulent letter of undertaking worth Rs113.56 billion issued by the Punjab National Bank. The fraud was allegedly organised by jeweller and designer Nirav Modi, who with his wife Ami Modi, brother Nishal Modi and uncle Mehul Choksi, absconded in early 2018, days before the news of the scam broke in India.
"They have all been patronised by the Modi government who helped them in this loot. We are the only party which has continually fought against this in the last five years. Modi's rallying call of Chowkidaar in the run up to this election campaign came from the pressure we put," Bhattacharya says.
"Then comes the issue of youth unemployment. It has been one of our biggest agendas that later became a rallying call for other parties. We were the first ones to point out that the economic trajectory that India is on currently will not generate enough jobs and that became a reality," he next says, referring to India's all-time high unemployment rates while also pointing to Modi's controversial demonetisation and GST which he said "were proven financial blunders" and "hurt the small and medium enterprises."
Bhattacharya also spoke about the "rise of communal forces" in recent times under Modi. "India means plurality and secularism. If these are hurt then India's democracy and federal structure will come undone and those who support communalism, caste and religion-based politics like Modi's BJP are only hurting India's legacy and long history of cultural coexistence," he says, while suggesting India now needs an alternative secular government that must focus on real issues, health benefits for the wider cross-section of the society, de-saffronisation of education, unemployment schemes, gender equality at work and minimum wages for labourers in the unorganised and unregulated labour market.
"These are issues we need to focus on instead of caste-based, religion-based politics," he adds, saying his party has been advocating a Rs18,000 (Dh950) minimum wage for blue collar workers and a monthly pension scheme of Rs6,000 (Dh315).
"As a party, we have always helped shape India's policies and nobody can deny our role over the decades," adds Bhattacharya, highlighting his party's role during the implementation of Right To Information (RTI) act and the "Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act", (MGNREGA) during the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. "Whoever comes (to power) next, will have to turn to us."
abhishek@khaleejtimes.com
 


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