The irony of the Left’s defeat in the assembly by-polls in Bengal, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, was not lost on anyone.
The irony of the Left’s defeat in the assembly by-polls in Bengal, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, was not lost on anyone. The fall of the wall symbolised the end of the iron curtain of communism in Europe, and on Tuesday, the Left was crushed in the state it has ruled uninterruptedly for 32 years.
The party office in Delhi, AK Gopalan Bhavan, wore a deserted look with no leader willing to comment on the reasons for this comprehensive defeat. The picture was completely different at the Bishamber Dass Marg residence of Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee where a crowd waited to greet her on the spectacular performance.
“This is a people’s victory. People are tired of the Left’s policies and goondaism,” she said. “They want an end to violence. I dedicate this victory to those party workers who lost their lives due to atrocities by the CPI(M) cadre.”
Trinamool leaders were upbeat, but cautious. “The trick is to sustain this momentum till 2011,” said a senior party leader. Many could not resist comparing the Left in 2009 to the Congress in 1977, when the Communists had ridden to power in Bengal on a similar wave.
A Left leader admitted that many of the things for which the Left had taken on the Congress are now present in the party. “We have been in power for so long that many of our supporters have never seen us out of it. In the long run, such a defeat may result in some ideological rigour being re-introduced into the party,” he said.
In Kerala too, the Left faced a washout with all three assembly seats going to the Congress. Particularly humiliating was the victory of former CPI(M) MP Abdullah Kutty, who was expelled from the party in 2008. He won from Kannur on a Congress ticket.
The leader of the opposition in the assembly, Congress’s Oomen Chandy, said, “The results are a continuation of the anti-Left mandate. People who were traditionally for the Left are openly favouring Congress.”
With state polls due in 2010 and 2011 in both Left bastions, it is worth watching whether they can recover lost ground.
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