Mud on the moustache

GREAT INDIAN CIRCUS

In the curtain raiser to this electoral circus on show, I had mentioned that buffoonery is not the sole preserve of the clowns and even serious players could at times offer comic relief. One such player has now obliged us. Though morning papers describe the CPI-M’s ‘latest’ decision as somersault and volte-face, we are rather inclined to conclude that this Left-out party had only been humouring the nation all these days while making a clown of itself in the process. Yesterday’s meeting of the party’s State unit probably went on these lines: We have been chewing over the insults heaped on us for quite some time. So, comrades, let us now swallow it. The State unit of the party has ‘decided’ to withdraw its earlier withdrawal of support to the DMK-led front. And now let us debate…

Consider this. The State unit of the CPI-M was piqued by the DMK front’s decision to allot just one seat to it. Karunanidhi would have been happy not to allot even that to the Marxists for he could never forgive them for joining hands with the MDMK. Moopanar, on his part, also would’nt mind. Afterall it was Surjeet who spoiled his chances of making it to the PM’s gaddi. Even so, the duo condescended knowing full well that the Marxists have no choice but to grab the loaf.

As we see now, they were right. They have had the last laugh. The nation of course had had several laughs at the CPI-M’s expense. For self respect sake the Marxists have however spurned the loaf, preferring instead to exhibit their incense by retaining their candidature for two of the six seats for which they filed their nominations. A token protest to the monumental slight that they have been subjected to all these days.

We are not sure as to what wisdom prompted the CPI-M in selecting the constituencies for which they have retained their candidates and also those for which they have withdrawn their candidates. The party high command has raised the communal bogey and UF unity(?) card to prevail upon the low-command here in the State to relent. Perhaps that explains the withdrawal of its candidates from Tiruchi, Nagerkoil and Coimbatore where the BJP is contesting and has to be defeated. Having decided to buckle and then crawl, the party might have as well grabbed the Coimbatore loaf for they could have sought to sweep the ignominy under the carpet by taking on their arch ideological enemy head on. Instead they have decided to fight the Madurai and North Chennai seats where they have to take on the TMC and the DMK respectively besides Swamy and the MDMK. Strange logic indeed. And as confusing as their policies on several issues.

Conversely, so, we are to infer that the two constituencies retained by the CPI-M can afford to get communal and also risk demonstrating some UF dis-unity. Swamy and MDMK are allies of the BJP. If the BJP is communal then so should they also be, at least in the eyes of the Marxists. Yet they would not mind helping them indirectly by jumping into the fray. In thirty seven constituencies the Marxists would uphold UF unity. But in two, they would not mind wrecking it.

The CPI-M probably hopes that the DMK and TMC would also relent, no doubt to uphold secularism and the front’s unity, by reciprocating, which in circus language means, counter-somersault. We have no news so far on any such inclination on the latter’s part though they are also eminently capable and equally thick-skinned. Circuses are known to spring unlikely surprises even while the curtains are being brought down.

email the writer at [email protected]