This is in reference to an editorial published by the Sunday Indian weekly
Why the communists lost Bengal and how mamata banerjee can easily ruin her big opportunity to destroy the cpm even now!
I f anyone has destroyed CPM, it is the CPM itself. I can personally bet that most workers of Trinamool Congress are also communists at heart because in Bengal, most hearts beat for the masses. The revolutionary fervour is a part of Bengali blood stream. It’s no wonder they tolerated a rotting communist party for so many years rather than vote for anyone else. The amazing thing is that even in these elections, out of a total population of 5.73 crores who voted in Bengal, Trinamool Congress got only five lakh votes more than the communists. Of course, rigging happened in many, many places where the communists won – from people not being allowed to leave their homes in the first place (something that can be never caught by the CRPF personnel who were posted) to threats at the voting booths, every trick in the book was rampantly used. But then, there are people who voted for CPM without coercion too. From people who actually benefitted from their regime, to their grassroots party supporters to communist lovers.
Before going any further, let’s first analyse, why did the CPM lose? Well, they lost primarily because they lost the support of the Muslim voters they had pampered for years (by allowing them to migrate freely from Bangladesh). This time alienated due to Nandigram-type issues, the Muslims came out and voted against them. And the fact, as I have always mentioned, is that Muslims are brave people for sure. There is no party that is strong enough to use muscle power to rig Muslim votes when they come out united. So, alienating the Muslims was a big mistake.
The second reason is that finally, the media played a positive role by default. Due to the pure nature of how nothing misses the media glare today, Nandigram got reported in mass media in an expansive way and became a huge issue, even though Buddhadeb’s predecessor Jyoti Basu had created a far bigger carnage at Marichapi in Sunderbans years back. At that time, the incident didn’t get reported properly; and he escaped media glare.
Read More.. on this blog:
http://arindamchaudhuri.blogspot.com OR www.thesundayindian.comMy Response:
Ariel P Verghese From Secunderabad--
As you said in your editorial’s (Why the communists lost Bengal and how Mamata Banerjee can easily ruin her big opportunity to destroy the C P M even now!) intro CPM itself is the culprit behind their fall in Kolkata, the case is not much different in Kerala too. There the splinter group and the infightings between the cadres paved their way out from the parliament. It’s a clear indication that one cannot fool the people continuously for a long time. The voters are now not as ignorant as before. It’s a good lesson not only to CPM or Mamata but to all political parties and their leaders in India. No doubt your editorial is a guide book to “Didi”, Mamata should read this and by heart some of the points noted there. A good guide book indeed. Ariel P Verghese Secunderabad
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