Lok Sabha elections 2019: Left in the lurch, CPI and CPM nowhere in picture - Hindustan Times
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Lok Sabha elections 2019: Left in the lurch, CPI and CPM nowhere in picture

Hindustan Times, CHANDIGARH | By
May 05, 2019 09:35 AM IST

In the assembly polls that year, the CPI won seven seats and the CPM eight, with a vote share of 10.1%.

From winning 15 assembly seats in Punjab in 1977 to getting reduced to just 44,000 votes in the state in the 2017 assembly polls, it has been a consistent slide for the Left parties in its electoral performance.

The emergence of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 80s and the later the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) further dented the Left prospects in the state.(HT Photo)
The emergence of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 80s and the later the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) further dented the Left prospects in the state.(HT Photo)

Seen as an alternative to the all-powerful Congress after Independence, the Left parties in Punjab, especially the Communist Party of India (CPI) and Communist Party of India (Marxist) —CPM, were at their peak till 1977. In the assembly polls that year, the CPI won seven seats and the CPM eight, with a vote share of 10.1%. The popularity faded in the coming years with the vote share of both the parties coming down poll after poll. The Left saw its all-time low vote share of 0.3% in the last state assembly polls.

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The Left — founded in Punjab by members of the Gadhar movement in the 1900s and later strengthened by youth icon Bhagat Singh and his comrades — is facing severe political crisis. In the last two decades, the CPI and CPM have split into least 10 splinter groups.

The Left is nowhere in the picture in the Lok Sabha polls too. Such is the predicament of the Left parties that the CPI, a part of the Sukhpal Khaira- led Punjab Democratic Alliance (PDA), is contesting the upcoming elections from Ferozepur, which never was its fiefdom. Bathinda and Sangrur parliamentary segments remained traditional strongholds of the Left till the early 70s when the CPI won both the seats in 1972. Later, Bathinda (reserved) constituency (which was changed to general seat after the 2009 delimitation) remained the focus of the CPI which it won in alliance with the Congress in 1999. The alliance remained intact in 2004 polls too, but the CPI lost the seat. In the 2007 assembly elections, the alliance ended and the Congress contested all the 117 seats on its own.

WHAT WENT WRONG?

While senior Left leaders cite nationwide trend of shrinking its base, CPI’s former Punjab secretary and national executive member Dr Joginder Dyal said the Green Revolution and terrorism had an adverse impact on the Left in the state.

“Left’s base in Punjab was peasantry. After the Green Revolution, the income of farmers increased and show-off culture boomed. Secondly, more than 400 leaders of the party were killed in the rural areas of Punjab during terrorism. This was a big blow to the Left in the state,” said Dyal.

The emergence of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 80s and the later the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) further dented the Left prospects in the state.

“I will not hesitate in accepting that the Left parties failed to provide a strong alternative to the people against the SAD-BJP and Congress. That is the reason why the Left-dominated Malwa belt voted for the AAP in the 2014 polls,” said CPI’s former MLA from Bhudlada Hardev Singh Arshi.

“End of student politics in state colleges post-terrorism was another factor that dealt a big blow to the Left as the campuses were our nurseries,” he said.

CPM’s former state secretary, Mangat Ram Pasla, who in 2001 formed CPM (Punjab) and later the Revolutionary Marxist Party of India (RMPI), said: “The mainstream Left parties hobnobbed with the Congress in the lust of power and forgot the issues of the Dalits and the labourers, leading to the emergence of the BSP,” said Pasla.

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