Congress Undemocratic Ideology - 4

[ramana]

Pioneer Op-Ed 30 April 2010

Win-win politics



Shikha Mukerjee



Left sheds a lot of its ideological baggage



Consistency is the hallmark of the small-minded; therefore, the large-minded leaders of Indian politics have abandoned the convention of pursuing tense binary positions at all costs and adopted with enthusiasm and creativity more flexible strategies with the purpose of being permanently in win-win games.



Unsurprisingly, therefore, the cut motions moved by anti-Congress parties in the Lok Sabha produced an array of responses. Complicated as the dynamics of these alignments are, these reveal the shedding of a lot of baggage by the Left. To jump to the conclusion that a new politics is emerging that produces combines based on issues rather than ideology, history and principles would be hasty and possibly incorrect.



The Communist Party of India(Marxist) and the BJP are on the same side because they have a common foe — the Congress. That is familiar history; but what is new is that increasingly they are willing to vote together, coordinating moves rather than contradicting and undermining each other. This does not amount to camaraderie; it does point to calculated complicity.



Thirty odd years ago, the Left would not have been caught in the uncomfortable position of voting on a motion moved by the BJP. Nor would it have agreed to allow the cut motions to be clubbed together and moved en bloc. Because it would not vote alongside the Jana Sangh, the CPI(M) pulled the rug on the Morarji Desai Government in 1979. In 1991, even though it rescued the minority Narasimha Rao Government by abstaining from the vote of confidence and bailed it out once more by staging a walkout on a Budget vote, it remained officially in denial about these moves.



In 2004, the CPI(M) shed more of its inhibitions and became less squeamish by extending outside support to a Congress-led UPA. It sat at the same table and negotiated over policy, taking credit, however hotly disputed by the Congress, for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme among other things.



Post 2008, the CPI(M) set out to establish new ties with regional parties and produced embarrassing failures. In Uttar Pradesh, the deal with the entirely whimsical Bahujan Samaj Party leader, Ms Mayawati unravelled. The Congress benefited. The realignment paid off on April 27; Ms Mayawati declared her principled opposition to the Congress’s failure to curb price rise and then in a magnificent gesture extended support to keep the communal forces at bay. Fussier than Ms Mayawati, both Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mr Lalu Prasad Yadav distanced themselves from the Congress as well as the BJP even as they promised to vote with the Left but were not given a chance to make good on it.



Even though these permutations and combinations mean the CPI(M) can and does willingly sup with its enemy, the BJP, because both are united in their anti-Congress politics, there is a remarkable absence of fuss. However, fastidious some may be in the CPI(M), the significant change is that it has abandoned its position that there are pariahs and there are others within the political space.



Untouchability, however, is not a practical guide to 21st century politics. Nursing grudges too is not practical any more. Even though the Congress and the Trinamool Congress have been at loggerheads over seat distribution in the forthcoming municipal elections, Ms Mamata Banerjee jumped into save the UPA on Tuesday. She did so without once registering her protest over the Congress failure to curb the rise in prices of food.



Her unconditional support is intriguing. She could have done what Ms Mayawati did; she chose not to. By voting without a fuss with the Congress on the cut motions, the Trinamool Congress has signalled that it needs the parent party to cement its victory run in West Bengal. Therefore the failure to arrive at a formula for seat-sharing, especially for the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, has been partly compensated by Ms Banerjee’s support on April 27.



In Kolkata, the alliance between the Congress and the Trinamool Congress is elastic; it is stretched to accommodate Ms Banerjee’s claims. To the extent the partnership is between two parties, there are few complexities, unlike the tortuous alignments that are unfolding between the Congress and its supporters on the one hand and the anti-Congress left and the anti-Congress right and communal parties on the other.



For, to win is all. The cost of faltering now would be the equivalent of sudden death in a tense tennis match.

I think the INC might even enable the CPI(M) to stay in power in West Bengal.