All Sitting Governments Overturned in Assembly Polls in Five States in India

-Rajesh Tyagi/ 11.3.2017

In an expected move, the voters in India have overrun the sitting governments, irrespective of their party affiliations, in five states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur.

This overrun is the pinnacle of disenchantment of the masses from the series of right-wing bourgeois governments that have succeeded each other in power since 1947. The anti-incumbency trend is crystal clear and is the only explanation to reversal of all the five sitting governments.

Incidentally, this massive overturn has resulted in the poll victory of the rightwing Hindu Supremacist BJP under Modi, in four of the five states. However, in Punjab where BJP was a coalition partner in the sitting government with Shiromani Akali Dal, a regionalist, communal Party, stands defeated in the same way.

Corporate media has attempted to misinterpret the poll outcome to project the victory of the rightwing BJP in four states as the ‘Modi magic’, but this falls short to explain the crushing defeat of BJP and its ally SAD, in the state of Punjab.

Neither the four states nor the one show any Modi or Rahul magic, but a definite trend of rejection of the sitting bourgeois governments by ever new sections of the workers and toilers.

Since 1989 the bourgeois regime had faced acute political crisis with decline of the largest bourgeois party the Indian National Congress and the continuing inability of any other party to substitute it to form the government at the centre. Fractured mandate and coalition governments had been the routine since then.

The anti-incumbency is not new in India. For decades, people have continued to frequently reject the bourgeois governments that supervise the capitalist loot for a poll term. The trend has only become firm and consistent overtime.

The rise of the extreme right under Modi in 2014 was also the offshoot of a massive anti-incumbency wave against the UPA-2 government led by Manmohan Singh, the then Prime Minister. The corrupt misrule of UPA provided the hotbed for the rise of saffron BJP to power.

Since BJP’s incumbency to power in 2014, the Congress and other bourgeois parties have been vying with BJP to occupy the space even on its right. All of them have supported the core policies of BJP government in ‘national interests’ and have virtually groveled before it. If they only criticized BJP it was only for not pursuing the rightwing course more firmly. Be it the matter of ‘surgical strikes’ inside Pakistani territory or the alleged ‘war on terrorism’, a cover-up for anti-muslim frenzy, the parties of opposition have stood by the side of BJP led government. This has given legitimacy to all illegitimate deeds of the saffron government.

The governments led by the Congress and other opposition parties, have performed no better than that under BJP rule. They all remained marred with massive crime and corruption. These parties have shared all anti-people policies and in fact have done the major part of heavy weightlifting in implementing the neo-liberal capitalist regime in the country even before rise of the BJP to power.

The rightwing regime under BJP makes no contrast in the estimation of the people distinct from that they have borne for decades under the rule of Congress and other parties like SP, BSP, JDU or RJD.

The Stalinists have played most venomous role in the entire period. Since 1989 they had remained adhered to this or that bourgeois formation at the centre and in the states. Stalinists have supported a series of the rightwing governments, starting from Indira regime even during emergency, the Janata Party regime and the government under V.P. Singh, when they were supported on the right by the fascist BJP, of Chandrasekhar, of Devegowda, and finally the UPA government in 2004. Through such adherence, Stalinists have subordinated the working class and the youth to bourgeois leaders and parties and have smothered the independent movement of the working class. It is through this smothering that they have paved the way for the rise of fascism to power.

In the states of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura where Stalinists could form the governments, they took the lead to implement the same neo-liberal policies, adopted by bourgeois governments in all other states and at the centre. It were they, who had banned the strikes completely in the IT sector in West Bengal.

Today, Stalinists are completely wiped out. The Stalinist left, despite of putting all its forces together in a larger left-alliance in present Assembly polls, remained on the fringes and went completely unnoticed.

The working and toiling people are completely disillusioned with capitalism and its political regime. Their anger is frequently expressed through poll mandates where the sitting governments have to face the wrath of people. The masses on their own, however, could only oust these governments one after the other and they are doing that, again and again.

People have once again demonstrated their fury by throwing out the governments in all of the five states under poll. Mandate in all five states is absolutely clear. It is directed against the pro-corporate bourgeois governments and their criminal misrule. Congress has won in 3 out of the 5 states where it was in opposition. Same is with BJP. Where is any magic in that, as trumpeted so loud by the right-wing corporate media? All win of the parties in opposition is by default and consequential to the defeat of their counterparts in rival ruling parties. 

Incidental to this overturn, is the rise of the saffron right, by default. This is beyond the people. To transcend capitalism, and to defeat the bourgeois parties together, working class has to be led by a revolutionary party armed with Marxist program. This is the task of Marxist revolutionaries.

The instant victory of the saffron BJP, in the four of the five state assemblies in the polls, would further empower it to implement its fascist agenda through misuse of the state machine, police, courts and the law and would weaken its opposition.

The spiralling anger of the people, is an active volcano, that would certainly erupt against the Modi government in the next round, if fascists would allow the next poll. Otherwise it would vent out in the street battles against them.