Bihar politics: The rise and fall of Left parties

In this article, ETV Bharat's Deputy News Co-ordinator (Bihar) Bhupendra Dubey talks about the rise and fall of the Left parties in Bihar and how the party made a stronghold in the state with its ideology and policies. However, with passing time, the party's performance exacerbated and now it is part of Grand Alliance with RJD and Congress.

Patna:In Bihar, the Left parties continue to search the base of their political foundation. There can be many reasons for this, but the biggest reason is that the politics of the left party, is now devoid of people's issues, it has become self-centred and appears to be working for their own goals and this has now become evident to the people of Bihar. Left parties themselves are to be blamed for this plight. They have remained aloof from the real issues and on several occasions in face of their inability to unite the credibility of the left parties has also been adversely affected.

If we take a glance on the post-independence politics in Bihar, the left parties had critical political interference in the country. Not only in Bihar, but in the entire country, the left parties used to play a powerful role in the government of the country due to its strong grassroots cadre, but with ever-changing political base and the opportunist politics left parties’, politics has been rejected at the national level.

Speaking of the scenario at the national level, Congress did not get a majority in the 2004 elections. The Left parties along with other parties played a very important role in the formation of Manmohan Singh's government and RJD supremo Lalu Yadav's contributed in bringing it together. In 2004, the left parties had 59 seats. In the 2009 elections, it was reduced to 24 and the reason is clear. They supported the same Congress at the center whose policies they had opposed in the past which had resulted in their popularity at the grass-root level. They lost the ground where they had their stronghold. Their image of fighting for the people was now tarnished and this was a big blow on the spine on the Left parties. This was the policy politics of the Congress, the seats of the Left party decreased and Lalu Yadav could not find himself a place in UPA II. In 2014, as the base vote of BJP increased and the Tsunami of Narendra Modi’s popularity, their seats were reduced to merely 12.

The Left was in the role of the 'Kingmaker'

There was also an era in the politics of Bihar when the Left parties used to have a say in decision making. There were more than two dozen MLAs in Bihar Legislative Assembly and four-five MPs in Lok Sabha from Left parties. The CPI was the main opposition party in the 1972 assembly and Sunil Mukherjee used to be the leader of the Opposition. The Marxist Communist Party (CPM) and CPI-ML also had many MLAs. The CPI had eight MPs in 1991. In Bihar, the Left parties had prepared the ground for themselves on the strength of land reforms, right to the sharecropper, rural poor and tireless struggle against exploitation-atrocity. The party was successful in gaining the trust of the public.

The base has started drifting since 1969

Even after becoming stronger due to their policies in Bihar, the left parties found themselves being rejected by the masses. Rather than the politics of issues, the politics of need started getting space among the left parties which gave rise to disillusionment among the masses towards them. Bihar’s mid-term elections were held in 1969 and no party got a clear majority in it. The Jana Sangh and the CPI had a decisive number of MLAs that they could have helped anyone form a government. The CPI took the middle path and allied with the Congress under the leadership of Daroga Prasad Rai and played a key role in the formation of the government. This changed attitude of the Left parties in Bihar politics gave a new twist to the leftist politics here. After this, the CPI formed a political alliance with the Congress and started taking advantage of its politics by being a hanger-on of the Congress.

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Performance of leftist parties in Bihar

The CPI was the main opposition party in the 1972 Assembly in Bihar; they found their pitch in mass politics on the issues like land reforms, demanding rights for sharecropper, rights for the rural poor, and their exploitation-atrocities. The politics of the left parties used to find a prominent place in Bihar, but in 1975 the JP movement gave a new direction to the politics of the country and a political revolution came in Bihar. The CPI, standing with Indira, called the JP movement a reactionary movement which caused heavy loss to the left parties.

Mandal Commission caused the dent to the base

The Left Parties had already lost the faith of the masses after opposing JP's movement. The party's performance was severely affected after the emergence of the Mandal Commission in 1979. The parties and leaders who emerged from the politics of Mandalism sowed such a crop of politics in the name of social justice that they are still harvesting its fruits. Leaders like Karpoori Thakur, Lalu Yadav, Nitish Kumar and Ram Vilas Paswan raised social slogans for Dalits and OBCs in Bihar, which initially was the fodder for the Left party's politics. The politics of social justice of Lalu Yadav broke the entire vote bank of the Left parties and the Left parties were visible only during the elections searching for their political base.

Nitish's Good Governance since 2005

Lalu’s politics in Bihar sidelined Congress and the Left parties, but the extremism that gave birth to Lalu’s politics pushed him off the margin too. The situation of the Left parties worsened since the last time in 2005 CPI-ML contested on 104 seats. What could be more catastrophic for the Left that they lost their deposit on 96 seats? Talking in terms of the vote, ML had got 5 lakh 20 thousand 352 votes in 2005 which was only 1.79 per cent of the total votes cast. The Communist Party of India contested on 56 seats. Their deposit was forfeited in 48 seats and they got only 4 lakh 91 thousand 630 votes in the form of votes, which was only 1.69 per cent against the total votes polled. Only one CPI candidate Avdhesh Kumar Rai won from Bachwara seat. The Communist Party of Marxist contested on 30 seats and candidates lost their deposit in 28 constituencies.

If we throw a glance at Nitish's strongest election in 2010, when Left parties were completely wiped out, the communist party could not secure themselves a single seat in that election. When Nitish and Lalu aligned together in 2015, the Left party got some strength and won 3 seats, but again in the politics of 2020, the Left parties are frantically searching for their political ground within Congress and RJD’s vote bank.

Among those who followed JP’s principles and captured the vote bank of Left Parties in the politics of Bihar are Nitish and Ram Vilas Paswan who are now with the BJP. Left parties could not even secure Begusarai, which was considered to be the stronghold of the Left party and was called Lenin Village. After Bhola Singh, Giriraj Singh, the leader with a hardcore Hindu image, won Lok Sabha elections by a margin that blew away the castle of cards that once depicted the tale of the Left's strength and stronghold on politics. The Left is supporting RJD and Congress alliance in the battle of power that will commence in 2020, but it is not clear how much support it will muster from the people, but only the promise of support can carry forward the tasks for the Left parties.

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