Team Anna outshines the Left camp

If anyone had any apprehension that the Left parties are losing their political space in civil society then it could not have been more apparent than on Monday when the Left camp sat on a dharna adjacent to Team Anna in Jantar Mantar.

While Team Anna has been here since last week demanding a stronger Lokpal Bill to be passed in the coming Monsoon session, the Left parties on Monday launched a five-day-long nation-wide agitation from Jantar Mantar demanding that an effective Food Security Bill be passed in the Monsoon session of the Parliament. Interestingly, both camps made demands sitting adjacent to each other.

The contrast laid in the visual size of the two dharnas. While, the Anna camp, with Anna Hazare continuing with his second day of fast, had around 1000 activists at all points of time, the Left agitation was a tepid affair despite the presence of its national leaders including CPM general secretary Prakash Karat, Sitaram Yechury, CPI’s A B Bardhan, S Sudhakar Reddy, Debbrata Biswas of AIFB and RSP’s Chandrachudan.

Also, Anna’s camp was more colourful with sound and fury, while the Left camp was a more of a sober affair. Nationalism was the flavour of the Anna camp with ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ reverberating all around. The Left opted for their steady diet of street plays and revolutionary songs. However, most of the cameras and mediapersons who were hovering around the venue chose to zoom their cameras on the Team Anna while the Left camp failed to get similar attention.