The 14th Lok Sabha election registered an unprecedented result for the Left parties. Whether it is Left ruled Kerala or West Bengal, the party showed its first ever poor performance in the last several decades. The result, however, indicated that the party is losing its roots among the masses. This only shows that the party central leadership is devoid of any ideological spirit or central leadership does not have knowledge of mass politics. At the present world of globalization where Communist countries like China and Cuba are developing their thinking, their Indian comrades are going with the decade old anti-American ideology along with the objection on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and several others.

In the recently concluded Municipal Election in West Bengal, the Congress-Trinamul Congress alliance bagged 13 seats leaving only three (3) seats for the Left. In the 2006 Assembly elections in Kerala, the Left Democratic Front bagged 99 seats with a vote percentage of 48 per cent. The United Democratic Front bagged 40 seats with a vote percentage of 42.92 in the 140-member state Assembly. The Democratic Indira Congress (K) bagged one (1) seat. The opposition Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) swept the Lok Sabha polls in the state, winning 16 of 20 seats. The LDF had 19 seats in the outgoing Lok Sabha. An analysis of the results shows that the UDF won in 102 of the 140 Assembly segments, further highlighting the LDF’s poor showing. The frequent squabbles in the CPI-M–between the majority faction led by state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan and the other faction, which is now left virtually with only Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan–caused major hiccups in the party on numerous occasions.

Three years ago in May 2006, the LF won the West Bengal Assembly elections by a whopping margin bagging 235 seats out of 294 seats. Statistics says that the LF lost as much as 191 assembly segments of the 294 and has lost more than 5% vote share down from about 48% in the last parliamentary elections to about 43% in this election.The picture appears to be gloomy for the LF in the coming Assembly elections too and the party appears to be on the verge of losing power unless some herculean effort is made to woo back the vast majority of minority Muslims, the poor and marginal farmers and to a lesser extent the Adivasis. For the LF, the rot is total in the urban belt in and around Calcutta as well as large chunk of rural areas losing all the seats from the districts of Kolkata, Howrah, East Midnapore, North and South 24-Parganas, Nadia, Murshidabad and Malda districts.

West Bengal would witness a few Assembly by-elections in the coming days. With Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee exploring all possibilities for the state Assembly election before the scheduled date, the Left Front would have to make some gigantic effort in Bengal apart from keeping its party in Kerala intact. 30 years fabled unity in the Left Front in Tripura is ruling the state for the past several terms.