THIS DUMB CHARADE OF LEFT-UPA POLITICS IS HOPEFULLY DRAWING TO A CLOSE!

The Left's calculations are quite simple. They know that they are destined to be bit players in India. Unlike the BJP that had worked to come to power at any cost by diluting its ideology and pushing aside the loyal but inconvenient conscience keepers for accommodating deserters from other parties with the win ability factor, the Left has a solid vote bank even if it restricts them to 50 to 60 MPs in the Lok Sabha. The Left firmly believes that a bird in the hand is better than 2 in the bush. It knows that its committed voters will blindly vote for it no matter what happens or does not happen. These blinkered voters are those who do not think beyond their material interests via higher wages with little work commitment guaranteed by the Left Trade Unions. In exchange they gladly keep their own intelligence and the country's larger interests in limbo and blindly follow the Party line in order to keep them relevant in Indian politics for leveraging their vested interests.

In a coalition government like the UPA it is the Left tail that wags the Congress dog. Anti-BJP rhetoric is to ensure that market economy does not get established in India that will effectively kill the Left's legacy of all pay and no work. As confident Indians become prosperous and educated the Left will lose its relevance and its voters. They have a long term vested interest in backwardness, anti-Americanism and imaginary Muslim anxieties which they keep regularly fanning. Recall the chasing out of Dr. Taslima Nasreen the Bengali author from Calcutta and later India in order to please a coterie of Mullahs who gather the block votes for the CPI (M). The Left does not have any inroads into the SC/ST vote banks as most of the Left's top leaders have been traditionally high caste and that SC/STs have their own rock solid vested leadership.

In the 3 States they have a strong presence; their chief rival is the Congress. General elections bound they now wish to once more occupy the opposition space after facing severe erosion in their credibility post the 4 year cohabitation with the Congress. This UPA charade has been going on for too long and people are fed up with non-governance. The net result of keeping the BJP out of power for 4 years has only resulted in the BJP’s chances of getting back with a larger mandate more plausible, unless the “Congress culture” of internal squabbling for election tickets voluntarily imbibed by the BJP since it became a polluted mass-based Party derails their ultimate plans.

That the BJP is not too chary of US concerns on India’s independent nuclear forays has been proved in Pokharan 2 and the resultant US sanctions which India easily weathered that finally broke the “Panhandlers” image of India in American eyes. The BJP only wanted the clause of India’s right to conduct tests to be factored into the ongoing Indo-US Treaty .The Congress refused to bite the bullet as taking the BJP’s help to survive a no-confidence motion after the Left’s withdrawal was too high a price to pay. The BJP wanted the Treaty to go through as unlike the Left it has no US allergy. It therefore, made no other concessions or restrictions to its arch rival to bail it out of the jam of their own creation with the anti-national Left’s support. The BJP either believes they have an alternative plan of self-reliant nuclear policy or that the US will not give up the Indo-US partnership even after Bush has exited the White House. If by populism one means whatever the majority wants is desirable even if it hurts India then we must grin and bear it as this is what Democracy is all about!