NEW DELHI: The Bihar results have delivered a major blow to CPI(Marxist-Leninist) Liberation with its double-digit tally of 12 seats in 2020 plummeting to mere 2 seats – Karakat and Paliganj – out of the 20 it contested this time. The party that traces its beginnings to mass movements and grassroots mobilisation among the landless and marginalised failed to retain even its strongholds.While describing the election outcome as “unnatural and not a reflection of ground reality” and claiming that the result was facilitated by deletion and addition of voters and by dispensing of the dole to women, party general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya did acknowledge the need for parties in the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ to “introspect” on this severe setback.

The CPI(ML) certainly needed to take a closer look at its strategy. Not only has it lost in its strongholds, the party which played a crucial role in keeping together the rather fragile alliance is set to lose its place as one of the grouping’s key anchors because of the abysmal performance.In what was seen as a strong comeback in 2020, the Left party had secured 12 of the 19 seats it contested as part of the Mahagathbandhan, emerging as a critical force with grassroots influence in belts like Bhojpur, Siwan and Arrah. Its influence in the alliance was evident ahead of the current polls. Through the power-play over ticket distribution and declaration of Tejaswi Yadav as the CM face of the alliance, one saw Bhattacharya playing a key role in ironing out differences between RJD and Congress.It is also felt that CPI(ML)’s going along with its Mahagathbandhan partner RJD’s decision to field Osama Shahab from Raghunathpur would not have gone unnoticed among the core support base of the Left party, impacting its image as a crusader for the marginalised. Osama’s late father and former Siwan MP Mohammad Shahabuddin was accused of ordering the 1997 killing of student activist Chandrashekhar, who was associated with the Left party and seen as his potential political rival.While CPI(ML) candidates won merely two seats – Paliganj and Karakat, the party lost in Agiaon (SC) by a narrow margin of 95 votes. In three other seats – Balrampur, Dumraon and Zeeradei, the margin of defeat was less than 3,000. The party contested 20 seats this time and its vote share sands at close to 3%. The other Left parties too have performed poorly, with CPI(M) winning just 1 of 4 seats as against 2 last time and CPI, which had won 2 seats last time, failing to open its account though it contested 6.Reflecting on the verdict the CPI(ML) general secretary said that the outcome “has the scars of SIR all over it. The role of the unprecedented money transfer operation amounting to Rs 30,000 crore among a beneficiary population of 3 crore defying all notions of election ethics and model code of conduct must also be taken into account.”“A virtual repeat of the 2010 outcome after fifteen years when the credibility of the Nitish Kumar government has touched an all-time low and the Modi government too suffered a major loss of support just a year ago defies credulity. We will undertake a thorough analysis of the outcome and draw necessary lessons,” Bhattacharya added. CPI(M) general secretary MA Baby described the result as a setback for the ‘mahagathbandhan’ and accused the NDA of utilising the state machinery and resorting to all sorts of manipulation including the Rs 10,000 cash transfer to bank accounts of women beneficiaries ahead of polls. The party in a statement said that the “NDA benefited from the polarising communal and cateist rhetoric of its leaders, including the Prime Minister and home minister”. “All this drowned out the issues like unemployment and even vote chori raised by the mahagathbandhan,” Baby said. However, he called for introspection over how key players could have put up a more united fight to counter the NDA in the elections.A leader said that while the Mahagathbandhan was able to raise the ‘vote chori’ issue with the people effectively, somewhere the alliance on ground was unable to mobilise the people to come out and vote to seek transparency in the polling system.The Left party leaders also cite that the way RJD and Congress delayed resolving differences over ticket distribution sent out a negative message about the mahagathbandhan lacking unity. This was further aggravated by what was referred to as “friendly fights” on nearly 10 seats where no consensus could be reached.

NEW DELHI: The Bihar results have delivered a major blow to CPI(Marxist-Leninist) Liberation with its double-digit tally of 12 seats in 2020 plummeting to mere 2 seats – Karakat and Paliganj – out of the 20 it contested this time. The party that traces its beginnings to mass movements and grassroots mobilisation among the landless and marginalised failed to retain even its strongholds.While describing the election outcome as “unnatural and not a reflection of ground reality” and claiming that the result was facilitated by deletion and addition of voters and by dispensing of the dole to women, party general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya did acknowledge the need for parties in the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ to “introspect” on this severe setback.

The CPI(ML) certainly needed to take a closer look at its strategy. Not only has it lost in its strongholds, the party which played a crucial role in keeping together the rather fragile alliance is set to lose its place as one of the grouping’s key anchors because of the abysmal performance.In what was seen as a strong comeback in 2020, the Left party had secured 12 of the 19 seats it contested as part of the Mahagathbandhan, emerging as a critical force with grassroots influence in belts like Bhojpur, Siwan and Arrah. Its influence in the alliance was evident ahead of the current polls. Through the power-play over ticket distribution and declaration of Tejaswi Yadav as the CM face of the alliance, one saw Bhattacharya playing a key role in ironing out differences between RJD and Congress.It is also felt that CPI(ML)’s going along with its Mahagathbandhan partner RJD’s decision to field Osama Shahab from Raghunathpur would not have gone unnoticed among the core support base of the Left party, impacting its image as a crusader for the marginalised. Osama’s late father and former Siwan MP Mohammad Shahabuddin was accused of ordering the 1997 killing of student activist Chandrashekhar, who was associated with the Left party and seen as his potential political rival.While CPI(ML) candidates won merely two seats – Paliganj and Karakat, the party lost in Agiaon (SC) by a narrow margin of 95 votes. In three other seats – Balrampur, Dumraon and Zeeradei, the margin of defeat was less than 3,000. The party contested 20 seats this time and its vote share sands at close to 3%. The other Left parties too have performed poorly, with CPI(M) winning just 1 of 4 seats as against 2 last time and CPI, which had won 2 seats last time, failing to open its account though it contested 6.Reflecting on the verdict the CPI(ML) general secretary said that the outcome “has the scars of SIR all over it. The role of the unprecedented money transfer operation amounting to Rs 30,000 crore among a beneficiary population of 3 crore defying all notions of election ethics and model code of conduct must also be taken into account.”“A virtual repeat of the 2010 outcome after fifteen years when the credibility of the Nitish Kumar government has touched an all-time low and the Modi government too suffered a major loss of support just a year ago defies credulity. We will undertake a thorough analysis of the outcome and draw necessary lessons,” Bhattacharya added. CPI(M) general secretary MA Baby described the result as a setback for the ‘mahagathbandhan’ and accused the NDA of utilising the state machinery and resorting to all sorts of manipulation including the Rs 10,000 cash transfer to bank accounts of women beneficiaries ahead of polls. The party in a statement said that the “NDA benefited from the polarising communal and cateist rhetoric of its leaders, including the Prime Minister and home minister”. “All this drowned out the issues like unemployment and even vote chori raised by the mahagathbandhan,” Baby said. However, he called for introspection over how key players could have put up a more united fight to counter the NDA in the elections.A leader said that while the Mahagathbandhan was able to raise the ‘vote chori’ issue with the people effectively, somewhere the alliance on ground was unable to mobilise the people to come out and vote to seek transparency in the polling system.The Left party leaders also cite that the way RJD and Congress delayed resolving differences over ticket distribution sent out a negative message about the mahagathbandhan lacking unity. This was further aggravated by what was referred to as “friendly fights” on nearly 10 seats where no consensus could be reached.