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The Rediff Special/ Venu Menon

'There is no option but to support the Congress in order to keep the BJP out'

The Kerala Marxists are in a dilemma. If they comply with party general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet and support the Congress at the Centre, it would mean adopting a soft line towards their foremost enemy in the state. If they oppose the Congress in Delhi, it would help the BJP.

The Communist Party of India-Marxist and its Left Democratic Front allies cannot stomach a policy of collaboration with the Congress that is being foisted on them by the party's central leadership. Yet they do not have Telugu Desam leader Chandrababu Naidu's option of keeping 'equidistant' from the Congress and the BJP. When Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government takes its confidence vote on March 27, the Leftwing MPs from Kerala will do their bit to thwart it. That would mean acting in concert with the Congress on the floor of the House.

The Marxists are worried that this would send confusing signals to their cadres weaned on anti-Congress sentiment. At a recent sitting, the CPI-M state committee endorsed the party's central line but not before recording a strong note of dissent. Members from north Kerala, where opposition to the Congress is entrenched, feared the CPI-M would lose its political relevance if it hobnobbed with its traditional adversary. They wondered whether the newfound camaraderie between the CPI-M and the Congress might not provide the BJP an opening to gain influence and expand its base in the state.

CPI-M workers will find it hard to break out of the anti-Congress mindset, especially in the wake of a fiercely-fought election in which the Left Front wrested key seats from the Congress. The Left leadership is faced with the need to educate the rank and file on the new imperative of supporting the Congress at the Centre.

Notes Marxist ideologue P Govinda Pillai: 'We cannot always go along with the sentiment of the cadres. We must educate them. In principle, there is no option but to support the Congress in order to keep the BJP out."

Educating the cadres is not going to be easy. For a start, the BJP is not perceived as the primary political threat to the CPI-M. The two parties clash on the streets, a phenomenon that dates back to the seventies. But the BJP is yet to open its account in the state legislature or Parliament. And while its vote percentage has increased from five per cent in 1996 to eight per cent in the just concluded poll, it is nowhere close to becoming a contender for power in the state. CPI-M leaders admit that party workers lack a sense of urgency about forging a broad front of 'Left, democratic and secular forces to combat the communal and fascist' BJP.

Local Marxists are uncomfortable with Surjeet's no-strings-attached offer of support to the Congress. They prefer a conditional alliance that insists on the Congress jettisoning its corrupt elements and toning down liberalisation to protect indigenous industry. The CPI-M is opposed to the imports that hurt the domestic rural sector, such as Kerala's 800,000 rubber growers.

Despite the dissatisfaction in its ranks, the state unit is not expected to defy the central leadership on co-operating with the Congress. The voices of dissent in the state committee reflect the dichotomy that exists within the CPI-M over its proposed alliance with a political enemy. To pre-empt any impression of a difference of opinion with the central leadership, Chief Minister E K Nayanar has been vocal in backing Surjeet.

"The BJP will spare no effort to win over the majority community. The only way to prevent that is for secular forces like the CPI-M and Congress to unite," he told the Kerala assembly. Hardliners feel the chief minister's unity call ignores the ground reality in the state's constituencies where the main fight is between the CPI-M and Congress.

But the CPI-M's central leadership is less concerned with the party compulsions in Kerala than with containing the BJP at the national level. And with the Bengal Marxists endorsing Surjeet's view, the Kerala unit is under pressure to fall in line.

Turning old foes into amicable neighbours may prove less difficult for the CPI-M leadership than settling the faction wars that rage within the party. Currently, the central committee is arbitrating between rival groups claiming supremacy in a power struggle, with the trade union lobby accusing Politburo member V S Achutanandan of rigging the Palakkad state conference and packing party committees with his cronies. In turn, Achuthanandan, who displaced CITU votary M M Lawrence as LDF convenor, has charged the trade unionists with sabotaging the poll prospects of CPI-M candidates, including his own in the 1996 assembly poll. Clearly, a disunited state unit is in no position to press its objection to Surjeet's decision.

The Rediff Special

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