Ranchi: In 2018 when for the first time the concept of a united opposition alliance – Mahagathbandhan or gathbandhan was thought of, it was believe that it will be a collective association to defeat the ruling Bharatia Janata Party (BJP) and NDA.
Now with the election bugle being blown for the 2019 Lok Sabha election, there is no sign of the Left Party in the Bihar and Jharkhand gathbandhan.
On two seats, Jharkhand’s Koderma and Bihar’s Begusarai are the seats where Left has strong claim because its performance on Koderma and student leader Kanhaiya Kumar being CPI candidate from Bagusarai. CPI (ML) has been in the second position for two consecutive times – 2014 and 2009 on Koderma parliamentary seat. While party’s candidate Rajkumar is an MLA from Dhanwar, on of the six assembly segments which fall in Koderma constituency. But neither gathbandhan left its seat for CPI (ML) nor for Kanhaiya who made made waves as the youth leader. Thereby, making the gathbandhan’s claim of fighting against BJP now seems to be a hollow claim.
So now, along with BJP, Kanhaiya has to fight against RJD’s candidate Tanveer Hasssan too.
Some Muslim intellectuals are of the opinion that only a handful Muslim candidates get election ticket, hence Hassan should contest from Begusarai. And it also become must, as in Godda, they feel that another strong Muslim candidate, Furkan Ansari, had to leave the seat for JVM, as Congress did not defended the seat for Ansari.
However, in Koderma it is not an issue of minority candidate from gathbandhan, but about Babulal Marandi, who had secured the third position in 2014 election. Marandi is the gathbandhan candidate and will now be contesting against CPI (ML)’s Rajkumar Yadav, and BJP, whose name of the candidate is yet to be announced.
“By the same logic, based on which Babulal Marandi claimed the Godda Lok Sabha seat and took it from Congress, saying that his party’s Pradeep Yadav had fought on many issues there, including Adani Power’s forcible land grab, CPI (ML) and Rajkumar Yadav has fought for the people of Koderma in the last five years including their fight against lynching. But here Babulal ji did not follow the same rule,” said Vinod Singh to eNewsroom.
And since Left parties have been left out in Jharkhand’s gathbandhan, now CPI (ML) will contest on Palamau Lok Sabha seat too, while CPI will contest from the Hazaribagh.
Political analysts are of the opinion that on both the important seats, this might lead to division of secular votes and if the difference of divide will be higher, then BJP might get a chance to win.
“Between the years 2014 to 2019 India has witnessed the worst of BJP’s fascism and who fought against them by taking on to the roads were student leaders like Kanhaiya Kumar and parties like CPI (ML), but when it came to giving them representation or accommodating their parties, the double standard of secular parties got exposed. In fact, they have failed to understand the gravity of the situation and there has been not a well designed seat-sharing between gathbandhan parties, in any state,” said Amit Raja, a political analyst.
