Poll prospects grim for Left parties in Uttar Pradesh
The Left party ruled West Bengal for over three decades and was a major force at the Centre till a few years back. Alas! they are nowhere to be seen in the Assembly polls in India’s biggest state, Uttar Pradesh.
In a state, where Communist leaders like Sarju Pandey and Jharkhande Rai used to take up the issues of farmers and labourers and shake the corridors of power, the Left are yet to make a mark in UP’s political arena.
This was vividly evident in the 2007 Assembly polls, when the party failed to open its account.
In the 2002 elections, the two Left candidates managed to win from their respective Assembly seats and made it to the State Assembly. For the Left, which had managed to win as many as 18 seats in UP in the 1974 Assembly elections, the decline was too sharp and was almost wiped out from the electoral scene.
Before the decline, some pockets in eastern UP were considered to be Left bastions—Ghazipur and Azamgarh were the two districts, where Left enjoyed support. CPI was particularly strong in these places. In the 1962 Assembly polls, the CPI had won 14 seats and five years later, the number was 13. The CPM had by then entered the electoral arena by winning one seat.
The decline of the Left in the state began in 1989 after the Mandal Commission report and the Ram Temple movement. The wave of economic liberalisation that swept the country in the later years proved to be the nemesis of the Left, and they found themselves almost irrelevant in UP politics.
The decline has been attributed to the Mandal (OBC reservation) and Kamandal (religious polarisation in the wake of Ram Temple movement) factors.
“We had to suffer tremendously because of the OBC reservation and Ram Temple movement…..the twin issues polarised the voters in the state to such an extent that ideology was relegated to the back burner,’’ says the Left leaders here.
It is not that the issues likepoverty, atrocities on Dalits and feudal mindset does not hold relevance in UP, but these issues have been overshadowed by the politics of caste and religion.
“Caste-based politics has become so deep rooted in UP that the ordinary voter does not see beyond it….all other important issues, though they directly affect the voters, have been pushed out of the electoral scene,’’ the leaders said.
The Left leaders also blame political parties for the prevailing scenario in the state. “The caste-based politics suit the two major players in UP—the BSP and the Samajwadi Party. In fact, these parties owe their rise in the state to caste politics only,’’ they pointed out.
The Left leaders rue that the dominance of the caste factor in the state’s politics has forced even national parties like the Congress and the BJP to follow the same for political gains.
“Congress has been vigorously trying to woo the Dalits…it has fielded candidates keeping in mind the caste equations……the BJP has also been trying to woo the backward communities,’’ the Left leaders say.
Pointing out the induction of the scam tainted former UP minister Babu Singh Kushwaha in the BJP, the Left leaders said: “Had it not been for the caste factor, the BJP would not have risked taking Kushwaha.’’
The Left leaders, though dejected, have not lost hope. They deny any leadership crisis in the state.
The political analysts, however, contradict. They opine that the Left never had any base in the state. According to political pundits, the Left was in UP because of the leaders like Pandey and Rai who had “personal appeal.’’
