2009 Poll Prospects And Alignments-2

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<b>The Politics of Opportunistic Alliance</b>

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>The Politics of Opportunistic Alliance</b>
February 14, 2009 by janamejayan

‘Politics makes strange bedfellows’ is an adage that is proving itself to be true in India as the elections draws near.

The communists grew up as a political force by branding the Congress Party as ‘bourgeois-landlord’ party and claiming that the overthrow of that party’s government would be their revolutionary zeal.  In the year 1962 they even split their own party accusing a section of being soft towards the Congress though it was really a split based on which one of the foreign communist governments - Russia or China - that they would be supporting.  In the year 1976 they joined hands with Jan Sangh to overthrow the Congress to come to power as a coalition government.

Fast forward to the 1990s.  When communism started unravelling in Europe and the once powerful ‘red soldiers’meekly surrendered to the ‘imperialist’ Americans, the communists in India were in a quandary unable to sell the success story of international communism.  At the same time the Congress Party was weakening as an All Inda Party as the regional parties that were both truly regional and also of the splintered Congressmen were gaining in strength.  It was because the Congress Party that had banked on its power in creating and then relying on the caste based political leaders in their hundreds all over the country suddenly found themselves betrayed by its own creation - the very caste leaders - switching sides to the regional parties to bargain and claim increased prominance.  The Jan Sangh had left the Janatha Party of the higgedly-piggedly promiscuity and floated their Bharathiya Janatha Party identifying themselves with Hindutva idealogies.  The Congress also changed tack and advanced their slogan of secularism so as to increasingly rely on the minority vote banks of Muslims and Christians.  The communists finding themselves bereft of both their idealogy and their sworn enemy decided to change gear and so they decided to jettison  the ‘bourgeois-landlord’ alliance of the Congress as their enemy and invented a new enemy in its place - communalism!  This made it easier for them to sleep with their old enemy - the Congress Party - to oppose the braving force of Hindutva movement of the Bharathiya Janatha Party. Thus was born the UPA govt led by the Congress Party supported by the communists.

When the communists decided to pull the plug on the UPA govt led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh they sought the help of the BJP - their arch enemy and readily got it.  But lo and behold! Opportunism is not their monopoly and to their dismay the Socialists under Mulayam Singh Yadav decided to align with the rest of the splintered socialists to save Manmohan Singh Goverment from the new alliance of the ‘communists and communalists’! In this endeavour of the Socialists Maino’s illgotton money played into many hands!!

The Indian Communists are really at crossroad at this juncture.  In Kerala, the State of their idealogical fountain from where they have most prominent polit bureau members including the general secretary, they are confronting pitched battle between Achuthanandan the Chief Minister and Pinarayi Vijayan the State Secretary of the party.  In West Bengal the party had misused their power to come down heavily on the dissenting peasants.  And suddenly the communists are becoming untouchables all over India! The next election might bring home the truth that the communists are a spent force in India.

Of course there is always the exception and the exption to this isolation of the communists is to be found in Tamilnadu where Jayalalitha has ditched the BJP in favour the communists in her alliance making efforts.  In this the BJP is more to blame for their historical macho attitude to her in favour of the most cantankerous and vilest anti-Hindu politician on earth - Mu.Karunanidhi.  Together with Dr.Subramanian Swamy who was also humiliated by some arrogant leaders of the BJP she quelled their pride in defeating Vajpayee govt.

The vote against Manmohan Singh govt on the so called ‘Nuclear Deal’ was not the making of the communists alone.  There had been dissenting voices from parties that had lost power in the last election.  They all had decided to form a ‘third front’ which included Mulayam Singh’s Socialist Party.  However Mulayam aborted this attempt at forming the third front for whatever reason. The new love between the Sonia and Mulayam are in the rocks at this juncture as the Congress is playing the Muslim card in Mulayam’s effort to garner more OBC votes by roping in Kalyan Singh from the BJP just as Maya had garnered the Brahmin votes away from the BJP.  However Mulayam is asserting as to who is the boss in UP against Maya’s BSP.  Sonia should learn to lick his shoes if she needs to win her family seats in the U.P.

This in nutshell is the story of the evolving political opportunism in India with particular reference to the communists whose demise we are about to see.  We might see more of the opportunism in the coming days and also some jellying up of a third front post election.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->