The CPI (M) party which was once considered to have formidable presence in Andhra Pradesh, over other leftist states such as West Bengal and Kerala has drawn a blank in Assembly elections, both in Seemandhra and Telangana regions. It has bagged a meagre nine seats in the Lok Sabha, which is the lowest since 1971 (after split of the party). The party never fell short of 15 seats in the national level.
On why such a dismal performance, CPI (M) Andhra Pradesh State secretary P. Madhu said the party was losing its relevance among people. “In today’s development-centric scenario, the Communist model of development is not being accepted by the people. Globalisation has corrupted minds of the people, especially the younger generation,” he said.
But he was fast to add that the globalisation bubble was bound to burst and the short-lived triumph will come to a stop. “It was only then that people will come to understand and accept our model,” he said.
According to him, the Indian globalisation model was faulty and is nowhere near the Chinese model. Elaborating he said, “We believe in FDI and borrowing money from foreign countries to accentuate our growth rate and in the process tend to ignore the local market and manufacturing sector. But the Chinese believe in consolidating its local market and manufacturing sector.”
He also said dismal performance of the Congress government in the last 10 years and various factors such as bifurcation of AP, price rise and corruption, strengthened BJP and its allies and cut into the other parties. “People appear to have lost faith in coalition politics and preferred to have a more stable single party form of set-up. And that hit us badly,” he said.
On the performance in West Bengal, he said, “not only Bengal but in other places also our performance was not as desired. We are going for introspection of the entire episode in the Central committee meeting in Delhi shortly.”
Having accepted the dismal performance, he was quick to add, “Numbers do not matter. In State Assembly we have no presence at all, but we shall fight issues from outside. Agitation has been our key tool and we shall take it up more aggressively.”
