In the by -elections in five assembly seats in four states, the results of the election were repeated from Punjab to Gujarat and West Bengal. The party whose candidate was won from the by -election also played Danka. Aam Aadmi Party retained the Ludhiana West in Punjab and Visavadar assembly seat of Gujarat. This time also the lotus feeding on the Kadhi seat of Gujarat and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) won from the Kaliganj seat in West Bengal.
The election results were also repeated in the by -elections of four assembly seats in three states. But the mood of one state seat was different from the election in the by -election. That seat is the Nilambur assembly seat in Kerala. The Nilambur assembly seat comes under the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat in Kerala, from where Rahul Gandhi used to be an MP and now Priyanka Gandhi is representing it in Parliament. Independent candidate PV Anwar won with the support of Left Front from Nilambur in Kerala elections.
TMC -backed Independent candidate was in PV Anwar by -election. The Left gave ticket to M. Swaraj in an attempt to retain his possession on this seat. Mohan George was in the ground for the Congress from the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). In the Kerala by -election, Congress’s Ardhyan got more than 77 thousand votes and he was successful in winning the election with a margin of more than 11 thousand votes. At number two was the M. Swaraj of the Left.
The Congress snatched this seat from the left. Assembly elections are to be held in this coastal state of South in the next year. Kerala has a government -led coalition government since 2016. The Congress and its leaders are looking at the results of the Nilambur by -election with anti -incumbency. AK Antony, a strong leader of the Kerala Congress, went two steps ahead and said that the current government is now only the caretaker, there has been a change with the UDF victory in Nilambur.
Kerala is the only state in the country where the Left has a government. After the Nilambur by -election results, the danger on this only fort of Left has also deepened. In such a situation, the discussion is also being held about the story of the Left coming on the floor.
The kingmaker was left 17 years ago
From the Left Parliament to the politics of the states, it was reduced to the 21st century. Not much, it is just 17 years old when there used to be a kingmaker in the politics of the Left Center. The Left was in the capacity of making and banging the equation of power in Delhi. In 2004, the Left won 59 Lok Sabha seats. The UPA government at the Center was also running with the support of the Left. However, the Left did not join the government then and supported the government led by Dr. Manmohan Singh from outside.
In 2008, the Left withdrew support from the government, opposing the US nuclear deal. The Left also showed its strength by bringing a no -confidence motion against the government in the Lok Sabha. However, the Manmohan government survived with the support of Mulayam Singh Yadav -led Samajwadi Party and other parties. After this, both the vote shares and seats of the left continued to decrease. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Left was reduced to five seats. However, the Left also got the benefit of coming under the banner of India Block in 2024 and its seats have reached nine.
Government was in three states, now limited to one
If you consider the base year as the base year, then the Left used to have a government in three states then. Along with Kerala, the power of West Bengal and Tripura was also in power. West Bengal and Tripura were considered to be the abhed fort of the Left. In the 2011 West Bengal assembly elections, the Left fell at number three with 40 seats. In the last assembly election of West Bengal, could not even open the left account and was reduced to zero.
In Tripura too, the Left, who was holding power for 25 consecutive years, had to be out of power after losing to BJP in the 2018 election. The 2023 assembly elections in Tripura also brought the mandate to sit in the opposition for the Left. For the first time after independence, if the Left government was formed in a state, it was Kerala and this is the state where the Left government is at this time. The Left continued to shrink and today the last fort is also said to be deep, so what are the reasons behind it?
What behind this condition of left
The support of the left has steadily declined. What are the factor behind this condition of the kingmaker at the center and the government in three states? This can be understood in four points.
1- Leadership
In the left parties, there used to be strong faces like Jyoti Basu, Harkishan Singh Surjeet, Somnath Chatterjee, Sitaram Yechury. These leaders also used to have their own stagnation in national politics. But after these, the lack of second line in the left was clearly reflected. There are still big faces like Prakash Karat, Manik Sarkar in the left, but they do not have the same public appeal. Its loss has also been done to the Left.
2- Change in economic policy
The change in the traditional economic policy behind the political defeat of the left parties is also being described as the reason. The foundation of the left has been related to laborers politics. In the recent few years, there has been a change in the opposing stands of privatization and private investment. In the month of April, during the Madurai Congress, the Left approved private investment in government undertakings with the establishment of private universities in Kerala. Such policy changes have also damaged the left.
3- Class politics dominates cast politics
The basis of the politics of the left has been class politics. The politics of laborers used to be the basis of left politics. TMC targeted the poor and farmers and made a big dent in the vote bank of the Left. Talking about West Bengal, the rise of the ethnic identity of communities like Rajvanshi, Matua in the state also damaged the politics of the left. In a state like Bihar, where the left used to strengthen, there was also a mass base in caste politics.
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4- Religious emergence of religious sentiment
Left politics has been based on the principle of distance from all religions. The political rise of religious sentiments has also damaged the politics of the Left. In West Bengal, Left leaders and cadre were also going to the pandals of Durga Puja, described it as associated with the cultural heritage of the state, but the secular voter went with TMC and the voters with religious faith were with the BJP. In Kerala too, religious sentiments have emerged in the last few years.
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The Left has also suffered loss of irreligious behavior among the people becoming religious. The latest example of this is BJP’s Suresh Gopi win by nearly two lakh votes in Thrissur seat of Kerala in the Lok Sabha elections held last year. In the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat, BJP candidate gave a tough fight to Shashi Tharoor of Congress and pushed the left to third place. The BJP, which won only one seat out of the 20 Lok Sabha seats in Kerala, lost in a tough contest in six seats.