The Left in India has suffered an epochal defeat in the recently-held Assembly elections, the results of which were declared on Friday. For the Congress too the message is not too good, although it will have its chief ministers in three of the four states and a Union territory that went to the polls, and it can share power for the first time in three decades in West Bengal under the leadership of Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee who has emerged as a history-making figure.
Luckily for the Congress, the results of the polls in Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry do not change the arithmetic in Parliament. Indeed, the drubbing of the DMK-led alliance in Tamil Nadu (which included the Congress) at the hands of the AIADMK-led combine will have the effect of cutting the DMK to size and give the UPA-2 leadership much greater elbow room. While the going was good, the latter had made far too many demands on “coalition dharma” at the Centre without giving an inch in Chennai, where it steadfastly refused to let the Congress enter the state government. Now the Tamil party may be expected to conduct politics with a more sombre sense of realism.
But if the Congress takes a medium to long-term view of its prospects after these Assembly elections, it should be realistic enough to appreciate that its political capital has depleted in the nation as a whole, although UPA-2 is at no risk whatsoever. The main Opposition at the national level, the BJP, is weak, and it had little role in these key elections which involved around a fifth of the country’s voters. The Congress’ stunning victory in Assam — putting it in power for the third time in a row in the state — should not lull it into thinking otherwise, although from the national security perspective, the value of this significant win of a national party in a vital state in the Northeast cannot be stressed enough. But the party’s showing in Kerala can give it little comfort, for it had almost lost the game. The heavy hitting by outgoing CPI(M) chief minister V.S. Achuthanandan almost changed the 40-year old pattern of the LDF and the UDF taking turns at power in the state. But the Left, and more specifically the CPI(M), can draw little comfort from this. Under Mr Achuthanandan’s leadership the LDF turned in such a commendable performance for two crucial reasons — the CM’s virtual revolt against his party’s establishment in the state and at the national level, and his sturdier than sturdy image of being anti-corrupt. It needs to be said here that if the Congress had not been reeling under corruption charges at the Centre and in several states, Mr Achuthanandan’s well-earned image of being a warrior against corruption would have been less of an electoral factor than it turned out to be. This further underlines the need for the Congress — nationally — to clean up its act and be seen to be doing so if it wishes to be a long-distance runner. For the CPI(M), specially, the clearest message is that the party is out of power in two key states where it has traditionally enjoyed deep-going influence. How well its organisational, political and ideological status coheres now will be of considerable interest to our polity.
The outcome of byelections to the Kadapa parliamentary seat and the Puluvenda Assembly seat in Andhra Pradesh indicate that YSR’s son Jaganmohan Reddy has indeed emerged as a dynamic political factor in the state. This too should be a wakeup call to the Congress. The party now needs to seriously reflect on organisational matters and the faltering grip of its government on the country’s political idiom.