Articles
Communist Parties CPI & CPM in Telangana
Dt: 5/12/23
Communist Parties CPI & CPM in Telangana
Dr T H Chowdary*
The Secretaries of the CPI and CPM give statements almost every week and sometimes, every day. The CPI State Secretary is Com. Kunamaneni Sambasiva Rao. The national General Secretary Com. Narayana supplements the statements given by Com. Kunamaneni
2. The CPM too is a frequent issuer of statements . Its Secretary is Com. Tammineni Veerabhadram. Both these parties repeatedly express their prime desire to defeat the “communal” BJP. They never denounce the AIMIM which totally is a Muslim party deriving its descent from the Razakars of 1930-1948 Sept 17, In fact, after the defeat of the Razakars and the Nizam’s army and the integration of the Nizam’s territory with Bharat on the 17th of Sept 1948, the Razakars made over their arms and ammunition to the communist party which was not split then. The Communists who were then against Hyderabad’s accession to Bharat carried on the guerrilla war this time against the Union of India until Sept 1951.
3. In the 2018 elections to the Telangana State Legislature the two communist parties forged two separate alliances to take on the Congress , TRS and the BJP. Each alliance had more than dozen parties as partners. The about two score candidates each alliance put up, in the 2018 election every candidate lost his deposit . These deposit- losers swore to fight the “communal” BJP.
4. In the 2023 Nov 30, election to the State legislature the two communist parties again fought separately. This time both of them bargained with the TRS/ BRS for seats on the plea that they supported the BRS candidate in the bye-election in Munugodu constituency in 2022. Both claimed that victory of the BRS defeating the BJP candidate was due to their support to the BRS. With this claim, they asked the TRS to give them four seats each in the elections in Nov 30, 2023. The TRS rejected their claims holding that their support is insignificant.
5. Rebuffed thus by the former lover , both the CPI and the CPM approached the Congress in 2023 requesting it to give four seats each. The Congress was reluctant. It was indicating that it would give no more than one or two seats each. In the event, the TRS/BRS gave only one seat and that was to Com. Kunamaneni of the CPI in Kothagudem. The Congress did not give any seat to the CPM .
6. Therefore the CPM stitched up another alliance of several parties and put up candidates in 19 constituencies. It lost deposits in every one of them. The CPI gave a statement that “democracy has won” . The CPM gave a statement that “the dictatorial rule of the BRS has been ended” with the defeat of the BRS, its former partner / patron at the hands of the Congress.
7. The CPM got its bigwigs, Com.Yechuri , Brunda Karat, Com. Raghavan and some others to campaign for the CPM candidates. The CPI entreated Priyanka Gandhi to campaign for it in the Kothagudem Constituency. It also got its national Secretary Com. Raja and Narayana to campaign in Kothagudem. The vote share of each of these parties is less than 0.1% and yet they brag that they would defeat the “communal BJP” everywhere in the country. Their vote share in other states in the parliament elections in 2018 were:
|
State |
Rajasthan |
MP |
Chhattisgarh
|
|
CPI |
0.12% |
0.10% |
0.34% |
|
CPM |
1.22% |
0.04% |
0.06% |
|
Source: Eenadu 22-10-2023 |
|||
The BJP- bashing CPM’s vote share in the Telangana elections in 30 Nov 2023 was 0.22% !
8. The history of the communist parties is a dismal one. The CPI supported Indira Gandhi’s Emergency in June 1975- March 77. In fact, it infiltrated no less than its Central Committee member Com. Moham Kumara Mangalam into the Indira Congress and into her cabinet even. When the Congress got a drubbing in the elections after the Emergency was lifted, the CPI shamelessly passed a resolution at its Congress in 1978 in Bhatinda regretting its support to Indira’s Emergency rule.
9. The CPM was opposed to Indira’s Emergency rule and also to the CPI’s collaboration with Indira Gandhi. These two parties frequently announce that all left parties should come together to strengthen the “secular, progressive, democratic” forces opposed to the “communal” BJP. But the fact is, that they themselves won’t merge. Their statements that all the left forces should come together to defeat the “communal” BJP have not resulted in these two main communist parties (out of a dozen are so of them in the country) have been remaining separate as statement parties. They come together in West Bengal and Kerala. They got routed in West Bengal in several elections at the hands of the Trinamul Congress. In Tripura also they lost their hold in the last two elections to the Parliament and the legislature . In Kerala, with the support of Muslims and a section of Christians they now and then come to power .
10. In Kerala ( perhaps even in West Bengal and Tripura) when they are in power a nefarious practice of them is, as revealed by the Governor, Arif Mohammad Khan, that each Minister appoints two private secretaries of his choice for a term of two years and after their retirement, they get life time pension. That is how Communists have been creating life-time communist party workers at government expense. If this is not corruption, what else is corruption? Strange are the doings of the two main communist parties . One of the other ten communist parties has a few MLAs in alliance with Lalloo Prasad’s RJD and Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) . (910 words)
END