'Understanding' not an enigma

Irrespective of how successful the historically improbable combination of the communists, the parliamentary ultra-Left, the Congress, and smaller, but politically significant regional parties is, the West Bengal election will be notable. The "understanding" or partnership that has been forged against the ruling Trinamool Congress is a trial run to the mega fight against the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2019 and the defining slogan says it all: Bangla bachao, Trinamool hatao; Desh bachao, BJP hatao.
If for the Left, led by CPM, it was unthinkable to team up with Congress through a process of seat adjustment, for West Bengal party boss Biman Bose, his consternation was obvious in doing the unimaginable: announcing the names of the Rashtriya Janata Dal candidate and for good measure that of the Janata Dal (United) too. Not so long ago, the CPM-led Left Front fought alone in the Bihar elections because of a squeamish reluctance to join up with RJD (because it was tainted by corruption) and JD (U), because it was contaminated by its BJP connection.
The West Bengal election is shaping up like a morality play, allegorical and dramatic. The forces of good seem to be aligning together against the forces of evil, based on the shifting "concrete conditions," of a political landscape that is rapidly consolidating against the BJP and parties that are not unconditionally critical of the saffron side. Hence, Trinamool Congress is identified as the other side, not least because it failed to vote with the opposition in Rajya Sabha on the amendment to the President's address of the Budget session of Parliament.
Kerala and West Bengal are instances of quite how extraordinary the circumstances are and the lengths to which Congress and CPM are prepared to go to deal with it. This complicated tactics of being partners in West Bengal and enemies in Kerala is a product of circumstances. In West Bengal, the two parties are battling shoulder to shoulder, whereas in Kerala which is also up for elections in 2016, the two parties are locked in a bitter competition.
In West Bengal, state leaders of both parties have moved mountains to work out the deals; more so the CPM, which has had to sacrifice its seats, talk to its Left Front partners and work out seat sharing with RJD, JD (U), the Nationalist Congress Party, the Samajwadi Party, old banished comrades and the Welfarist Party as well. The compulsion to combine to fight a common foe is so strong that CPM's state chief Surjya Kanta Mishra has declared that all squabbles over seats will be cordially resolved.
The awkwardness of CPM and Congress, however, is all too obvious. Neither party's top leadership has openly and publicly endorsed the seat adjustment, the negotiations and the inevitable joint campaign in West Bengal. This, too, is a first for both sides. Congress president Sonia Gandhi has not said a word as yet. The CPM's decision-making body, the Central Committee, and its very vocal general secretary Sitaram Yechury, have said nothing either. The crunch time will be when the leaderships will have to announce the seat adjustment to convey to the electorate that votes must be transferred to defeat the common target, namely the Trinamool Congress and in a few seats, the BJP. The leadership will find it difficult to avoid campaigning jointly if for no other reason than to convey the idea of a united front to the voter in West Bengal.
For both parties, it is a coming to terms with the new fluidity of 21st century politics, where issues and ideologies combine in markedly different ways than in the past. Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee is not wrong in questioning the basis of the understanding between Congress and CPM, because it cannot be ideological and it cannot be on a common agreement on policies, especially economic policies. But there was clearly a space where the two grand old arch enemies of Indian politics, especially after the bitter separation in 2008 over the India-US nuclear deal, found themselves united over a common and shared idea - of rescuing democracy, tolerance, the Constitution and secularism from authoritarian clutches in West Bengal now and the nation from BJP's clutches in 2019.
The coalition to defeat BJP in 2019, and prevent it from winning in crucial states like Uttar Pradesh next year, is being welded together in West Bengal. The Congress swallowed the bitter pill when it realised in 2002 that the 21st century was the era of coalition politics. The CPM believed it had too in the mid-1990s and even adopted resolutions in 1998 and 2002, but it was never seriously required to make it work. This time, in West Bengal, it is leading the change, which could make good the prophetic statement, what West Bengal thinks today India will think tomorrow.