Generating jobs for educated youth was a big challenge: CPM on why it lost Tripura

NEW DELHI: Days after it was routed in Tripura, the CPM has admitted that BJP’s campaign struck a chord with young voters because generating jobs for educated youth and tackling unemployment has posed a serious challenge for the Left Front government.
Attributing lack of jobs in Tripura to remoteness of the state’s geographical location and the resulting difficulty in attracting investments and industry, the CPM mouthpiece People’s Democracy, said, “Government jobs were the main source of employment. This had obvious limitations.”

Former general secretary Prakash Karat’s latest editorial also offers clues to how the party maybe headed for a “critical evaluation” following the “major setback”. The CPM was reduced to 16, while the BJP-IPFT alliance won 43 seats in the 60 member Tripura assembly. The communists suffered a setback among urban voters and in tribal areas.

There is a just a hint in the essay that CPM might be open to further considering its options on allying with Congress and other non-NDA parties after having so far ruled out an electoral truck.

Though senior party leaders evaded direct answers to what may have led to the loss in Tripura, the PD editorial dwells on what might have been the Left Front’s undoing. “The BJP campaigned on the slogan of change. It looks like this has struck a chord with the young generation of voters particularly the urban and tribal youth. Despite the all-round positive performance of the Left Front government, the fact remains that generating jobs for the educated youth posed a big challenge,” the editorial said.

The editorial is a more candid assessment than party general secretary Sitaram Yechury’s initial reaction that the BJP used money and muscle power to win the Tripura election. "BJP brought together all kinds of forces using money power without attaching any morality to it. There will be results due to this for which people need to be alert," he said.

Amid growing demand from a Left leaders for CPM to remain open to allying with “secular, democractic” parties, including Congress, the editoral also suggests a major churning and an amendment to the draft political resolution passed by the central committee may be possible at the impending Party Congress.

It said, “This is the first time the Left Front had to fight the BJP as its main opponent. The electoral loss must lead to a critical evaluation of our political, ideological and organisational work to counter the offensive of the BJP-RSS combine. The coming Party Congress should help us to equip the Party to face the forthcoming battles effectively.”