Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee: Left will regain lost ground

From Mamata Banerjee's fight with Election Commission to 'neo-liberal' courses of BJP and Congress and why CPM is not being able to attract the youth, former chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee pours his heart out in a no-questions barred chat with TOI
Mamata Banerjee is going all out against the Election Commission despite the official climbdown. How do you react to it?
It is quite unusual for a chief minister.She should be aware of the Election Commission's powers. She cares less about the Constitution. Her reaction indicates uneasiness about the outcome of the polls. She is trying to intimidate poll officials. It's a veiled threat on the electorate as well. We never did such things when we were in government.
Now that the state is facing a four-cornered battle in many constituencies, are you eyeing vote division to improve your tally?
Not at all. We have to improve our own support base to improve our tally. We need to retain the votes we got in panchayat polls. Some support may come from this way or that, but we are not simply banking on it. It is a foolish idea.
What is your take on the Left's prospects in Lok Sabha polls in Bengal?
I don't think it will be a repeat of panchayat and municipal elections. We will do better. Our activists couldn't enter Burdwan, East and West Midnapore and Arambag in the last two polls. It won't be the same this time. The EC is trying to normalize the situation. Unlike the state election commission, the EC has more administrative teeth. This apart, we are a little better organized this time.
Mamata flaunts her pro-farmer, pro-poor stance. She claims that her government has done what the Left couldn't in three decades. What is your response?
I leave it to the people to judge. The Trinamool government has failed on all fronts. We left behind concrete investment proposals of Rs 15,000 crore. The Trinamool government could fetch investments of only Rs 200 crore. These investment proposals are all meant for the small and tiny sector. What has happened to the Jindal Steel Works (JSW) project in Salboni or the Videocon project in North Bengal? They are all stuck. Two major IT companies - Wipro and Infosys - are yet to set up shop in Rajarhat. These two companies had promised to create 90,000 new jobs. It didn't happen. The agricultural scene looks dismal. Paddy production is down and there is rampant corruption everywhere. People have been witness to the multi-crore chit fund scam. Where has all the money gone? The new universities that the Trinamool government has set up are all non-starters. Worse, the government is borrowing money to fund utsavs and jalsas. Look at the Trinamool ministers. They exude the discreet charm of the lumpen proletariat.
Who do you think is a greater evil - BJP or Congress?
BJP and Congress are following the same neo-liberal course. Congress has been touting growth in GDP, but Prime Minister Manmohan Singh could do little to improve quality of life. He has failed miserably in tackling hunger, poverty and unemployment. Significantly, Congress and BJP go hand-in-hand in matters of fiscal policy. Parliament is witness to all such efforts by the UPA II government, right from the Finance Bill to disinvestment, which were backed by BJP. Now that PM Manmohan Singh has given up, Narendra Modi wants to aggressively pursue the neo-liberal agenda that includes divestment, de-control of petroleum prices and so on.
The country has seen Atal Bihari Vajpayee as Prime Minister. What difference would Narendra Modi make?
Both of them have their roots in RSS. Yet Vajpayee was a moderate face. He believed in raj dharma. He didn't hesitate to condemn Modi after the Gujarat riots. Modi is aggressive and deliberate. He sees nothing beyond the corporate-led Gujarat model. He wants to replicate the model for the country when the Gujarat model is found lacking on several counts. We are opposed to it. Instead we insist on an inclusive growth path with due emphasis on the underprivileged, SCs and STs and the minorities.
You have been talking about forming a pro-people government at the Centre. But when the Left Front got an opportunity in the recent past, they enjoyed power from outside without discharging responsibility. Why should people vote for you?
I don't agree to this perception. In fact, the Left played a crucial role in carving out some pro-people policies from outside. They pertain to ensuring rural employment or preventing unbridled disinvestment and decontrol of petroleum prices. We could do them from outside. What have others done being part of the UPA II government? As of now, the question you have raised is hypothetical. Our basic policy guideline is that we will participate in governments only when we can play a meaningful role in policy-making. We won't join government to pursue the policies of others.
You are for industry, but the Left Front says that it is against forcible land acquisition. Does this mean that land acquisition during your tenure was forcible? If so, will you leave land procurement to investors?
I am also against forcible land acquisition. So when there was a violent protest in Nandigram, I dropped the industrialization plan. We didn't coerce farmers or grab their land for industry. The government guaranteed that land owners get remunerative rates for their land. They gave up land voluntarily. There has to be a balance between agriculture and industry. I admit that there were some mistakes in the acquisition process. In saying so, we can't ignore the need for industry. Investors won't buy land on their own. The government has to play a facilitating role or investors would have to depend on land mafias. Farmers won't get remunerative price if the aggregation is done by mafias.
There is a perception that the Left is unable to attract the youth. You are still a role model in Bengal. The new faces you project are all above 50 years of age. Has the Left ideology or form of communication lost validity?
This is still a problem. We are trying to overcome it. But it is not peculiar to Left parties in Bengal. It is a global phenomenon that Left parties are not being able to attract the young. Communists across the world are trying to renew their ideology after the Soviet setback. We have also renewed out views on democracy. We no longer subscribe to one-party rule in socialism. We uphold a multi-party system in socialism to honour pluralism. We need to reframe our slogans to communicate with the young. There was a time when our slogan against US imperialism - hands off Vietnam - touched youngsters. Slogans such as these do not appeal to the young now. But that doesn't mean that imperialism is a dead idea. It has changed forms, but the substance remains the same - maximization of profit
CPM had an enviable organization when the party was in government. It is no longer so. Is this an indication of coercion and hegemony that communists usually use when they are in government?
This is propaganda against communists. Yes, there has been a marginal drop in our party membership. We have also suffered erosion in our support base. But that doesn't mean that we commanded support by muscle power when in government. We are trying to make up for the loss since the 2011 assembly polls. We have identified some of the problems and are trying to engage our cadres to win over the people. It is our experience that the Left has been able to retain its support base in places where our activists could fight the Trinamool terror. We suffered in places such as Burdwan, parts of Jangalmahal, Bankura, Birbhum and Hooghly where Trinamool overpowered our cadres. However, the sunny side is that things are looking up and the scene is quite different in places like Basirhat and Bongaon. Things have improved marginally in other places as well though we have to go a long way to recover the ground we lost in 2011.
CPM has taken lessons from successive poll debacles since 2008 panchayat polls. What are the things that the party would avoid if it regains public support?
We are very clear about it. We will try our best to maintain a clean image and shun high-handedness. Second, we won't interfere in all aspects of civil society. And most important, during our stint in power, we failed to maintain the unity of the poor. The poor got divided along party lines despite having common interests. We will try not to repeat these mistakes.